


Hen morghot, glaeson (From death, life)

by Sanziene



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Everyone is an adult!, F/M, Jon Snow can choke, it's probably going to be quite angsty, this is my fix it fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2020-03-31 00:07:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19038328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanziene/pseuds/Sanziene
Summary: After her death, Daenerys finds comfort in the arms of her knight, but when life beckons her to the land of the living, she must make a choice.Stay with her bear in the house with the red door, or go back to the land of the living and take her revenge.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If felt just like a punch to her ribs. She ought to know, she had taken plenty of them throughout her life. Punches, whiplashes, slaps across the face, and many other, worse things that she cared not to remember. She had never taken one from Jon, though.

But it was just a punch, and then it wasn’t.

Before Jon’s lips left hers, she felt the heat of it. Dany frowned, failing to understand what was happening. Fire was singeing her heart but fire cannot kill a dragon and she was the blood of dragon made flesh. “I am alright,” she thought, then the fire ebbed and she felt the sharp edges of the blade lodged inside her chest.

She looked up at the man she loved, the one who she had trusted, the one that had pierced her heart, and a thousand questions danced in her eyes, “Why? I loved you, Jon, why? I trusted you! Why? Why, why?”

Her vision darkened at the edges and she felt her grip on life starting to loosen. She tried her best to dig in her dragon talons and hold on to it but failed.

The last thing her eyes saw were the eyes of the man she had loved, the eyes she had lost herself in, the eyes of her murderer. The last thing her ears heard, the sharp, piercing wailing of her child. Then everything turned to dark and there was nothing.

  
*

She had grown up on stories of the Iron Throne, they had fed her when she had been hungry, her belly aching and empty. It had been her sustenance, the last glimmer of hope. _“Once I’m on the throne we will eat like kings and queens, dressed in the finest of clothes. Once I’m on the throne we will be safe. Once I’m on the throne...”_ Her brother had said and in the mind of a child, the throne had become the glimmer of hope that would take her out of the grime, that would keep her safe and fed, and _happy_. Finally happy, finally home.

She had barely touched the throne, hadn’t even gotten to sit on it. All her life’s work crumbled, turned ablaze and into ashes, all because of Jon Snow. The man she had loved with all her heart, the man she had given everything to, the man she had saved time and time again. The same man had been her undoing, had repaid her with a knife through her heart. No, there was no love left for him in her heart, it had all spilled away, dripping down the sides of the blade and out of her body. In its place hatred grew, red and all-consuming as dragon flames.

She was dead and her murderer was alive, as were his accomplices, Tyrion Lannister, her hand, and Sansa Stark, the architect of her destruction. And where was the justice in that?

The wailing of her child ran in her head and it tore her heart open. Drogon was alone in the world, crying out for his mother. She feared for him. Men who thought themselves brave would try and kill her last child and she wasn’t there to guide him, to protect him, be it as little as she could.

The darkness muted away Drogon’s cries only to be replaced with the screams and prayers of the people of King’s Landing. They were loud and horrible, and they pierced her ears, making her head spin and split with pain.

“No, no, no!” She screamed as she crumbled to the ground. Around her the darkness turned to ashes, all around her burnt bodies, unrecognizable, just flesh turned to tar and charcoal, but still by their stature, she could tell that so many of them were children. Too many. _Children!_

What had she done? What had she become? This was not who she was, she had spent her life fighting for those who could not fight for themselves, protecting women and children. _What have I done?_

Around her ashes fell like snow in the North, turning her garment white.

“This is not who I am, this is not who I am!” She said again and again, “I am not my father, I am not him!”

Yet she lay in the ruins of Kings Landing and not even her father, the mad king, had done such a horrible deed.

She lowered her head in her hands and cried. She cried for what she had done, for the thousand and thousands of deaths. For Rhalegar, for Viseryon, for Ser Jorah and Missandei, for Barristan Selmy, for Drogo and their unborn child, even for Viserys.

They were all gone now, just like her. Her life, short as it was, had been marked by loss, by pain, by suffering. Her moments of true happiness had been few and far between and so many of them were stained now, like the times she had thought herself happy with the man that had ultimately killed her.

And what of her legacy? She had been the Khaleesi who had united the khalasars and had taken the Dothraki across the sea, she had freed the slaves of Yunkai and Meereen, the Unsullied of Astapor, had birthed three dragons through fire, had saved Westeros from the Long Night. None of that would matter, no songs would be sung in her honor, no. All the songs would be laments or caricatures of her and of what she had done to King’s Landing and its people.

But, alas, it was too late for mending what she had done. Too late for revenge. _Too late!_  And her mouth filled with wormwood at her powerlessness in the face of death.

Slowly the darkness around her ebbed and underneath her feet, she saw cobbled stone. _A path_. She got up and took a moment to notice that her dark clothes had turned into the blue dress in which she had freed the Unsullied. She followed the path and saw it, the house with the red door and the lemon trees outside the windows. The house had seemed so much larger back when she was a child, it was smaller now, but it was... home. She was home. The home she had known and loved the most. A spark of joy flared up inside her. _Home._ Maybe she could leave the worries she had had in life to the living, maybe she could rest here.

Dany wrapped her hand around the knob, but before she could twist it she heard a gruff voice she knew so well.

 “Khaleesi?”

She turned on her heels and saw who she knew she would. Ser Jorah Mormont, alive, dressed in his golden shirt and looking as young as the first day she had met him. A huff of breath left her lips. Of course, it was him. If there was anyone that could find its way to her, it was him. How many times had she sent him away, only to have him return to her?

In life, Daenerys had kept her back straight, her head held high and had hidden under many masks. She did not wear her heart on her sleeve, she could not, it was not the ways of a queen. She had had to be stoic, detached and proper. But she was not alive anymore, there was no throne to fight for, no queenly image to uphold, no reason to be restrained.

So she ran for the man who had died in her arms, and whose body she had set ablaze not long ago.

“Khaleesi!” He said again as he wrapped his arms around her and held her up, held her tightly to his chest.

She nuzzled at the crook of his neck and he felt warm and alive, and he smelled familiar, like _home_. Through all the time they had known each other, she had hugged Ser Jorah only a few times, but each time she had found to like it. She liked it even more now. She wasn’t sure if her heart had been beating since Jon had pierced it, but now, she could feel it beating again inside her chest.

“Oh, how I've missed you!” She said as a hot tear ran down her cheek, remembering the anguish she had felt as she had watched him die, her hands covered in his blood, her eyes begging him to stay. _Just stay!_  “I have missed you so!”

“If this is a dream,” Jorah said, softly in her ear, “I do not want to wake from it.”

“It is not,” Dany said, and she felt his body stiffen. He had truly thought it a dream, she realized. Maybe he wouldn’t have dared say such things otherwise.

Ser Jorah pulled himself out of the embrace and looked into Dany’s eyes.

“The last of what I remember is your face, looking down at me, while I took my last breath. I am dead, I know that to be true…” Jorah distanced himself from her, already shaking his head, defiantly, “how are you here, my Queen?

Dany said nothing, but her eyes told him the truth.

“No!” Jorah burst out, “Tell me that isn’t so, tell me you died happily and of old age, tell me you are as young and as beautiful as I remember because of some strange magic!”

Dany gave him a thin, pained smile. He had given his life for nothing. She had died not a fortnight later. She could have died on the fields of Winterfell with him and maybe that would have been for the best. Missandei would have been alive, as would Rhaegal, and all the people of King’s Landing.

“No, Khaleesi, no, that can’t be, you can not be dead!”

There were tears in his eyes now. A seldom sight. “How? Who?” He asked his hand reaching for her only to falter. “I should have been there to protect you, to keep you safe!”

Dany looked up at her knight and smiled thinly. This man before her had been by her side since she had started on this path. Looking back she had lost count of the times he had saved her life, given her good counsel or simply offered her a kind word when she needed it most. Yes, he had spied and informed on her, but he had repented and paid in full and then some for his mistakes. She had thrown him out and he had returned to her like a battered dog, with his tail between his legs, wanting nothing more than to be loved by her. But she couldn’t give him that, not the way he wanted. Yet, she did love him. She did.

Her thoughts turned to the battle of Winterfell. When Drogon had left, she thought herself dead, but her knight had come out of nowhere and saved her. Had used his body as a shield, had taken sword after sword, and knife after knife, and he had stood there, refusing to give into death until she was safe.

When the dead had fallen, so had he. His eyes had been filled with love and fear, and she had held him until he was no longer. It wasn’t until then that she had felt something, something more than just horrible grief. In her mind, there had always been time. Time for what? She hadn’t let herself think, but all of a sudden there was none left. That possibility had been wiped clean by his death.

“You gave your life for me once, you did all you could and more.”

“I would do it again. In an instant.”

Dany knew it to be true but wondered if he would feel the same way if he knew what she had done.

“Khaleesi, I must ask, how… and who… who did this?”

Maybe it was because she was feeling raw and vulnerable and for once she didn't feel like she had to hide it. Maybe because the time she had thought spent had started ticking again, maybe it was because Jorah had died by the blade for her, and he would happily do it again, while Jon had turned the blade against her when she least expected it, like a coward.

Maybe it was all those things, maybe it was none of it, and something else completely, but she wrapped her arms around Jorah again.

“Khaleesi?” He questioned.

“No, don’t talk, just hold me.” She said and Jorah did.

One of his hands in her hair, the other wrapped around her waist, her head on his shoulder, Daenerys felt _completely_ safe.

 

*

In her room, with the lemon trees by the window, Dany sat by the head of her old bed, close to the ornate pillows. Her feet, that had dangled off the side of the bed long ago, when she had been but a girl, were now long enough to be pressed firmly on the wooden floorboards.

Ser Jorah stood at the foot of the bed, his hand, as always on the hilt of his sword. Both were looking out through the window, at the blue sky, as the wind rustled the green leaves of the lemon trees in a soothing dance. 

Dany hadn’t answered his question for she feared what he would think of her, and Ser Jorah hadn’t asked it again.

“This is where I had my happiest memories, in this house.” Dany said, “I thought of it often, dreamt of it, wished for it, but never dared to hope I’d see it again, yet here I am. Maybe the Gods aren’t as cruel as we think them.”

“If they weren’t cruel, you would still be alive and on the iron throne,” Jorah said, not turning to face her.

Dany huffed. He was right, the Gods did not care for her, nor for any other mortal. She had seen and endured too much suffering to think otherwise, yet still, she was in the house she had loved so much, with the man who had loved her the most. She could have been in the pits of hell, or alone in the endless darkness. “Maybe so,” she answered him, “or maybe there is a slither of goodness in them.”

It was Jorah’s turn to huff.

She looked at his features, at his tall and slim frame, at the perfectly straight nose, his high cheekbones, his reddish-blonde hair, be it thinning, at his eyes, a more beautiful blue than the Narrow Sea, and wondered why she hadn’t noticed them before.

“Why are you here, Ser Jorah?” She asked.

“Where else could I be?”

“Home. You told me you prayed for home. Why aren’t you on Bear Island? Why are you here, in the place only I could call home?”

Jorah’s lips moved but said nothing.

“Sit,” she ordered and he obeyed, taking a seat at the foot of the same bed.

“Your queen has asked you a question.”

Ser Jorah looked at her, his eyes bright and blue, his voice low. “You know why.”

“Tell me anyway.” She said scooting up towards him and taking one of his hands in hers.

“My place is by your side.” He said as a thumb caressed her knuckles. He took a deep breath and continued, his eyes darting from her hand in his to her eyes. “When I met you, home was Bear Island. I traded your secrets for the mere hope of returning to it...” He stopped and looked into her eyes. “If I could turn time on itself I would not do it again!" He squeezed her hand once, as to accentuate his words, then continued. "But, along the way Bear Island had receded in my memory, in my heart, and you… you came forward. You are my home. You have been my home for years.”

All her life, since her first memory as an orphan girl, Dany had wanted love, had longed for it, craved it, and by Gods did she have love here, lodged in this man’s chest, beating fast, steady and strong between his ribs.

She pulled him into a hug again, but unlike last time, she kissed the tender skin of his neck. Jorah shook in her arms and Dany kissed again, until he stood still. Her lips moved upwards slowly, and she kissed his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth, his lips.

His love was a breath of fresh air, and she was underwater in the middle of the sea, she clung to him like a drowning woman.

Jorah’s hands moved to the back of her head, his fingers in her braids, his mouth on hers, tender, lovingly, hungry.

Dany had wondered what it would feel like to kiss him and worried. What if she felt nothing? As their lips met each other for the first time, she had received her answer in the form of the roaring thunder in her ears, the beating drum of her heart against the back of her ribs, and the dragonflies that were wreaking havoc inside her belly.

Everything felt intoxicating and right. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the kudos and comments, I honestly didn't expect them but i appreciate them so much. I was (am) just trying to work through my feelings after watching season 8. 
> 
> A few things:  
> Fic rating went up  
> Trying to find logic in Dany's OOC burning of KL is, and will always be a pointless endeavor. I tried.  
> This chapter is filled with Jenny of Oldstones references, because Dany turned out to be Jenny, and Jorah, the one who had loved her the most.  
> I listened to [ this ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Tod1_tZdU)song a lot while writing this chapter, thinking of their _not so nice_ , past interactions. [](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Tod1_tZdU)  
> Hope you guys enjoy this chapter as well.

On top of crumpled sheets, her naked skin pressed on his, Dany traced random patterns on the blond-haired chest of her bear, a sprawling smile on her face. She taught of the journey that had led them here and couldn’t help but wonder why it had taken her so long.

 _“You’re a conqueror, Daenerys Stormborn.”_ Daario Naharis had told her.

And she _was_ one, a conqueror of places and people’s hearts, the freed slaves of Slaver’s Bay, the Dothraki, the Unsullied, all the ones she had called her friends along the way, and Drogo, Jorah, Daario, Jon Snow. She had won all their hearts, but none as easily as she had won Jorah’s, none as deeply or as completely, and maybe stupidly, that had been the reason why it had taken so long to find herself in his arms.

There was nothing to conquer there, for he had given his heart to her even before she thought to have wanted it.

With Khal Drogo she had made him love her, night after night, with Daario she had played the games of children, first discovering a crush. And Jon, he had been unwilling to be conquered, so of course she had tried her hardest, put the most effort into, and maybe, she had confused that with her deepest love.

Jorah’s love had always been there, it had been the safety net beneath the high tower of her ambitions. Always ready to catch her, to put her feet on solid ground, only to watch her climb up again and again, even higher. And while that had made her turn her eyes from him as a suitor, with every catch, with every kind word and good counsel, with all the countless ways he had been there for her, a brick had been placed inside her soul. Brick by brick, standing steady on solid foundation in the depths of her soul, a cathedral had been built, and no other man could hold such a claim. It had always been a cathedral of love, affectionate, familiar, enduring love.

As her heart had sung under the weight of his touches, as his mouth had traced the landscape of her body, as she dug her fingers into his back, pulling him in, as they found all the ways in which the curves of their bodies fit perfectly together, that cathedral shone brightly inside her soul with yet another type of love.

What a fool she had been.

With her heart full of love, feeling safe in the arms that held on to her like they never wanted to let her go, Daenerys realized that she never wanted to leave.

 _Never_ wanted to leave.

Jorah pressed a kiss to the top of her head and her heart skipped. It skipped with love and with dread. She had yet to tell him of what she had done, what she had become. Would he still love her then?

She wouldn’t lie to him, she wouldn’t try to lessen the horror of her actions, she wouldn’t give excuses.

“I have done horrible things.” Dany said without preamble, looking up into loving, blue eyes, “I won’t try to explain or defend my actions, but you should know who you are holding in your arms.”

Jorah only blinked at her, the smile on his face not even fading, and Dany’s heart sank.

“I destroyed King’s Landing. It lies in ashes, littered with the burned bodies of men, women and children alike.”

Jorah said nothing, but his eyebrows rose.

“Thousands and thousands of them, dead by dragon fire, by Unsullied spears and Dothraki arakhs.”

He swallowed.

“I could have stopped, I could have spared them. But I didn’t.”

Underneath her, Jorah’s chest rose and fell a little faster and a frown wrinkled his forehead.

“Do you hate me now?” She asked looking into his eyes, trying to read what laid behind them. She could see a thousand questions in them and a thousand emotions.

Jorah huffed, bitterly, “Hate you? I wouldn’t know how to.”

“Are you horrified, are you disappointed?”

“Are _you_?” He asked, sounding more like a bear than a man, looking into her purple-tinted blue eyes.

Dany closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to his chest, hiding her face from view. Of course he would ask that, he knew her so well. “I have fought my father’s shadow all my life and all it took was a moment of weakness to overtake me.” She said, but her words tasted false on her tongue. “I lost too much, much has happened since you’ve been gone. Viseryon, and you, then Rhaelgar and Missandei, all of you went to your death in front of my eyes...” Dany swallowed.

“I had no love left there, only fear.” She said, her eyes now on his. “You used to say _‘You have a gentle heart,’_ remember? You were wrong, I don’t. In the end, I was my father’s daughter. If they wouldn’t, couldn’t love me as their queen… then I made sure they’d fear me. And they did, I can still hear their screams in my head.” Dany felt a tear as hot as dragon fire cut her right cheek in two.

Jorah wiped it away with a thumb and scooted himself and Dany up on the bed until they were sitting with their backs to the headboard.

“Maybe you were my gentle heart all along.” She said, more tears dancing in her eyes.

“Nonsense.” Jorah shook his head. “Your heart was, is purer than mine ever was. I was the slaver, and you the abolisher.” He placed his hand, weathered by time and sword between her bare bosom. “ _You_ did all the things that I advised you against, you claimed the women from the horse lords so they wouldn’t be mounted, you freed the slaves and the Unsullied of Astapor, the slaves of Yunkai and Meereen. You cared about people, you postponed your goals for them, put yourself at risk for them. You did all of that and more with your gentle heart.”

A soft sob left Dany’s lips. “It’s gone now, that heart.”

“And yet, I still feel it beating under my palm.”  

Dany huffed, then removed his hand from her bosom and placed her head back on his chest.

She could feel Jorah’s fingers in her hair as he said, “If you want to sit on the throne your ancestors built, you must win it. That will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done. 

She remembered him saying the same words as the two of them, and Ser Barristan had walked down the Walk of Punishment, what felt like a lifetime ago. “The blood of my enemies, not the blood of innocents.” She had said then, and now.

“Have you ever seen a war where innocents didn’t die by the thousands?”

She remembered those words too, he had said them to Ser Barristan that day.

“I was going to change that! I was going to break the wheel and take down tyranny and what have I done? I’ve killed them all, men, women, children. Children! 

Jorah caressed Dany’s cheek with a forefinger. “Do you think Tywin Lannister felt anything but pride and accomplishment after he sacked King’s Landing? Do you think your father stopped to question his sanity, or if what he was doing was right? Did Robert Baratheon care about the slaughter?” His finger was now under her chin, lifting it up to meet his gaze. “I don’t know why you felt you had to go down the road you did… I’m not condoning what you have done, and I know it will do nothing for the dead of King’s Landing, but you’re remorseful, and that’s more than anyone can say about half the kings of the realm, new or old alike. What is done is done, Khaleesi, the dead can not rise again. Not them, not us.”

Jorah’s words didn’t make her feel much better, but he was right, she was remorseful and she wished she could take it back, turn back the hands of time, do things much differently from the moment she first set foot in Westeros, or even before. But time only flew in one direction. And like her bear said, she was dead and gone, there was no changing the past, no atonement, no throne, no title.

Just this house with its red door and lemon trees, and Jorah, the one she had lost, the one she had found again, the one who had loved her the most. The one who _still_ loved her the most.

She thought again of the past, of how fixed and unmovable it was, and yet she wished nothing more than to change it. “I shouldn’t have sent you away, I shouldn’t have listened to Tyrion, I should have kept you with me, I should have made you Hand, not him. I shouldn't have trusted Varys or Jon.” Dany said into his chest. Their names tasting like poison on her tongue. “They conspired against me, betrayed me, killed me, the ones that I had trusted.”

Jorah stiffened underneath her.

Dany's voice turned cold. “It was Jon, he pierced my heart with a blade and held me as I bled.”

Jorah’s eyes snapped to hers and his mouth opened as if to speak, but no words came out. A look of utter shock was plastered on his face, it slowly morphed into pure hatred the likes of which she had never seen on his features.

“I have been a fool in a knight's armor, I shouldn’t have brought the snake, Tyrion, to you, I should have brought his head instead. And Jon Snow, I thought him an honorable man, such a fool I’ve been.” Jorah shook his head, the top of his lip curled in disgust. “He swore an oath, he proclaimed you his queen. He served you well when the serving was safe, when it had helped him in his cause…”

Around her waist, Dany felt Jorah’s fist clench. “And you were not just his queen, but....” Instead of words, a growl, not different than that of a bear’s left his lips.

 _“His lover.”_ Dany finished Jorah’s sentence inside her head. She had been that, and she had loved him, but that love had dripped from her heart in drops of blood. It lay in the throne room, on the ashen floor, where it belonged, and suddenly she felt the need to show Jorah that. Show him who she loved now, who she should have loved all along.

There was no changing the past, no atonement, yes, except…  

She was here with her bear and she couldn’t help but remember all the ways in which she had made him feel smaller and smaller, in which his pride had been grinned down into nothing.

His face throughout the years came to memory, especially those blue eyes she was looking into right now. How many times had he cast his eyes down, not daring to look up at her after she had unleashed her sharp tongue on him, how many pleading eyes had she seen, how many times had she seen his heart break right before her?

How many times had her mouth opened just to hurt him? Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not.

She caressed his left cheekbone, the one that had been scared defending her, and in her head the echo of those long ago words replayed with familiar resonance.

_Get him out of my sight._

Her eyes moved from his only to linger on his lips before kissing him, slowly, lovingly.

She climbed on top of him, her hands taut in his hair, her tongue in his mouth. She kissed him again, the same way she had devoured the horse’s heart, like all she had ever wanted laid in the last bite, at the end of their kiss.

_You will not speak._

She broke for air well past comfort but barely stopped to draw breath before her mouth moved down his neck, kissing gently the thick scar he had received defending her from Qotho. She wondered just how many scars he had acquired while serving her. On the other side of his neck laid no scar, there she bit gently from ear to collar bone, then kissed her way up again.

_Don’t ever presume to touch me again._

She felt him, hard, between her legs and lifted herself from his lap only to lower herself back down, slowly, taking him in as her hands were cupped around his face, as she looked deep into blue eyes that burned her where she stood. She was the dragon, and yet— Their mouths opened in unison as he sheathed himself fully inside her, fitting perfectly.

_And you’re too familiar._

He kissed her, with as much want and need as she had, and she could have sworn she was flying, her head high in the clouds, air getting thinner, head getting dizzier. His hands were everywhere, had he grown one or two without her knowing? She could feel them on her hips, moving them in ways that made her toes curl. On the nape of her neck, pulling her into another kiss. On her breasts, fingers kneading the soft tissue.

_Remove Ser Jorah from the city._

Her senses were filled with him, the smell of his skin, the taste of his lips, the feel of his touches and kisses on her body. Of him between her folds. It was a maddening dance, one she welcomed, and he spun her round and round.

_I do not want you in my city, dead or alive._

He leaned her body back, supporting the arch of it with a strong arm, and she could feel his other hand between her legs, fingers gently caressing above where their bodies met. Dany threw her head back, eyes looking up at the white, vaulted ceiling. As his finger moved expertly over the bundle of nerves, she shuddered under those touches, her eyes rolling back in her head as she reached her peak and crossed it.

Soon after, she felt him spill inside her. 

Her body felt like a rag doll, like all her will and power had been dredged out of it, leaving nothing but a warm feeling of content.

As Jorah slipped another hand under her back, he pressed kisses to her belly and her breasts, and Dany smiled. He lifted her up slowly and laid her back down on his chest. His arms came to wrap around her body, his lips pressing once on the top of her head, and Dany cooed.

_He loved me, and I couldn’t love him back, not the way he wanted, not the way I love you._

“I love you, Jorah Mormont.” She whispered, “Always have, in my way, even when I hurt you, even when I sent you away again and again.” She didn’t dare look up at his eyes, for if she did she knew they would swell with tears. “I love you in all the ways that I can now, in every way a woman could love a man.”

She felt his chest rise and fall much faster, his arms tightening around her body.

“I love you and you alone, and if I could go back and do it all again, I’d choose you from the start.”

When he spoke, Jorah’s voice was gruffer than she had ever heard it. “I love you, Daenerys. Always have, always will, no matter what. No matter what.”

Dany knew that if she were to look up into his eyes, she’d find them filled with tears. She didn’t, for hers were drowning in the same saltwater.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think one of the most heartbreaking moments for Jorah is when he comes back to her bloody, and all she can think to asks is "...and Daario Naharis" but it just didn't feel right adding that to the fic. (adding another man's name while they were...you know.)
> 
>    
>  ~~(but it's okay coz she was stone cold when she dumped Daario)~~


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter.  
> I just think that Dani would be highly traumatized by her death....

Neither Dany, nor Jorah could say how long they had been in the house with the red door, but neither cared. Here, time moved in moments, not hours.

It dripped like honey behind the North Wall as mouth found mouth, as fingers dug into skin, as little words of love echoed in ears, as breaths caught sharply in throats.

It shot across the sky like a bleeding star as they held each other and just talked. They talked about nothing and everything.

She spoke of the same house in Braavos, of kind Ser Willem Darry and the few happy memories of her childhood. He spoke of his father and Longclaw, of Bear Island, of growing up in the wooden keep, of the almost constant rain and bone-chilling cold. Of how little there was to do there compared to Essos or Westeros. Of how much he missed it, of how much he had wanted to see it again before he took his last breath.

Dany could see the longing in his eyes, like a dull ache suddenly sharpened by the weather. He longed for home, so very much, and yet she knew he had longed for her even more, for he was here with her, and not in his beloved wooden keep.

Dany pressed her lips to his stubbled cheek, gently, gratefully.

Would she be alone in this house if it were not for her bear’s stubbornness and devotion? Would she have spent all of the afterlife by herself in an empty house if he had not considered her to be his home?

 _Thank you!_ She thought as she pressed another kiss, softly on his lips. He smiled thinly and Daenerys couldn’t have helped herself from giving him another kiss even if she had wanted to. He looked so handsome when he smiled. She wondered just how handsome he had been in his youth, just how good of a suitor.

He was a knight and he had been a Lord, be it of a small, meager house, and he was smart and cultured, and while he had his flaws, he was a good, loyal man. If she had met him under different circumstances, in another time, another life, she might have fallen in love with him from the first glance.

But it was too late for what if’s. She had him now, in this place that was all theirs, and so she kissed him again, and again and yet again, and time slowed and turned to honey once more.

Behind the red door, the days were warm, and kind and full of love.

The nights were filled with horrors.

Dany was dead, and yet, even in death she slept and dreamt. In her dreams, she heard powerful wings batting above her, heard Drogon cry for his mother, felt the wind lapping at her skin. Cold, cool, warm.

She dreamt of cold, damp castles filled with enemies, of a red wolf with a crown on its head. Of a black raven who had been a wolf, sitting on a throne, a lion at the head of his table. Another, younger, wolf swimming in the Sunset Sea away from Westeros. She dreamt of wild beasts threading through the snow of the north, following a crow that looked like a dragon.

They were all alive, and she was not. Their eyes were the same color as the ones they had been born with and they were reaping all the fruits while she had paid the price. 

Dany dreamt of dragons too, one the color of gold, the other that of grass, dancing in the sky above, their skin unpierced. She dreamt of a beautiful, kind butterfly who lost its head because of a lioness. Of thousand of horses dead on the cold, winter ground, of thousands of broken spears and shields covering the same, snow blanketed earth. She dreamt of a great bear dying in the arms of the dragon he had fought to protect.

Those were the dreams that made her wake with a startle, made her reach a hand out across the bed until she felt her bear, still there, with her, as unhurt as he could be. She scooted herself back into Jorah’s sleeping arms and nuzzled at his neck, but as her thoughts moved from her bear to wolves and lions, her heart burned with hate for all who had wronged her.

Those were not her only dreams, though. She had another, one that repeated itself often. In it she was back in the Red Keep, snow falling around her like ashes. Jon was there too, standing beside her, as young and as beautiful as she remembered him. His eyes spoke of love as he inched closer, his body touching hers. His hand cupped around her left cheek, leaning in for a kiss, and Dany’s heart was pounding against her ribs. All she wanted was to get away, to shout, to run, to fight her way out of his embrace, but she couldn’t move, she was petrified, like a funeral statue beneath Winterfell.

As Jon’s lips pressed to hers, she felt as powerless as she had been the day her brother had sold her for an army, and bile was rising in her mouth.

_No! No, No! She screamed, but no words came out._

She was not a dragon anymore, but a little bird, caught in a cage and the cat was making its way towards her, pawing at her, the bars of her cage offering no protection from him, only keeping her trapped, unable to escape.

His lips pressed harder to hers for a moment, then he released them. His hand moved from her face with one last caress, and Dany’s stomach churned, her mouth tasting like wormwood. She prayed to all the Gods of the realm. She prayed to break the enchantment, to let her fight her way out, to strike Jon down.

_Let me go! Let me go! No! No! No!_

She felt Jon reach for the blade.

 _No! Oh, Gods no, please, no!_ She had no voice and yet she was crying now.

She felt the blade, more than she had when she’d been alive. She felt its sharpness scrape against bone, felt it pierce her heart, felt its off-kilter beats, and soon, her insides filled with blood. Outside her body, running down the traitorous blade, blood was dripping down to the snow-covered floor. Its red color contrasting sharply against it.

She jumped awake in a cold sweat, screaming and sobbing. Her head still filled with the terror of her nightmare, her heart pounding in her chest.

“No! No! No!”

She felt hands wrap around her waist and she clawed at them. “No! Let me go, no!”

“It’s just a dream.” She heard. “Whatever it was, it’s just a dream!”

She didn’t listen, but fought harder to escape the grip, and as soon as the hands released her, she cowered to the edge of the bed.

“Khaleesi, it’s me, you’re safe! You’re safe, I would never hurt you!” She heard again, and this time she registered who’s hands she had clawed at.

Tears blurred her eyes, and her lips shook as she turned to him. “Jorah?”

Jonah’s hands, scratched and a little bloody, were held up, unthreatening, but inched closer to her, slowly, as if she were a wild, skittish animal.

“You’re all right, I’m here. I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise!” He said, his hand tentatively caressing her arm.

Dany burst into body-shaking sobs as she wrapped herself in Jorah’s arms, nuzzling at his neck.

“You’re safe, you’re safe!” He reassured her, his voice sounding low and broken. “Shhh, Khaleesi, shhh!” He said, a hand on the back of her head, fingers splayed in her hair, his other hand moving up and down her back.

She cried in Jorah’s arms for a long while, until her tears ran dry. She felt safe there, wrapped around him, his hands on her body, keeping her from harm, as he had done in life.

Slowly she began to feel like herself again. Like the powerful woman that had freed thousands of slaves, the one that had been brought into Vaes Dothrak in chains and had come out ruling over the biggest Khalasar in Dothraki history. 

She remembered her dream, remembered Jon’s face twisted in anguish as he had held her dying body and Dany knew she had never hated anyone more. He had taken her life and now he was taking her rest, had turned her into a scared victim when she had been anything but in life. Dany gritted her teeth. She had never been just a victim, and she refused to be one now.

Dany wiped at eyes that had long run dry. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She said, her face still buried deep in Jorah’s neck, her thumb running just below the edge of his shallow cuts. 

“It’s nothing, Khaleesi, do not worry about me.”

She felt his hand running through her hair, putting loose strands behind her ears.

“I’ve never seen you this scared,” Jorah started, “not once. Not in the Red Waste, not in Vaes Dothrak, not in the fighting pits of Meereen surrounded by enemies. Never! I….” Jorah paused for a moment. “What dreams haunt you?”

“Dreams of my death,” Dany said. She had wanted it to come out matter-of-factly but what came out was a voice half-drowned in a sob.

Jorah pressed her tight to his body and kissed the top of her head. “I should have been there, Khaleesi, protecting you. It was my duty.”

Dany looked up at him and saw his eyes burn bright with hate yet again. She knew it wasn’t for her. He could never hate her, not like that. The part of her that might have told him that what is done is done had died with her. Even if she could never have it, Daenerys wanted revenge, so Jorah’s hatred pleased her. She hoped their combined hatred for the man could ripple from the beyond into the land of the living and strike Jon Snow down.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. ^__^


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sword was not intended as an euphemism, but if you read it as such... 🤷♀  
> Jon Snow knows nothing, it is known!

The days and nights, however long and many, passed in such a way, with Dany waking up in a cold sweat from her nightmares, and Jorah trying his best to calm her down and bring her comfort.

“I’m here Khaleesi, never further than an arm’s length away, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She knew his words were true, knew he would always protect her, but the nightmares still came and she still woke drenched in sweat, trembling and screaming.

It was night again, the moon high in the sky, and Jorah laid in bed, his chest barren, his head propped up on two pillows. “Come, Khaleesi.” He beckoned.

Wearing a thin, pale violet nightgown, Dany stood by the window, her hair undone, her tired, dark-rimmed eyes looking out into the night sky, but her head miles away.  She had come to dread the night, to dread falling asleep. She was dead, she shouldn’t need to sleep, yet her eyelids still begged to meet each other every night. 

She turned to Jorah, and with a sigh, made her way to bed. She didn’t want to sleep and dream, didn’t want to feel Jon’s lips on hers again, nor his blade inside her chest, but part of her had come to accept the nightmares as her eternal punishment for what she had done to King’s Landing.

“Rest your head on my shoulder,” Jorah said and Dany did just that.

His fingers were moving through stands of white hair as he added, “Sleep now, and I will watch over you.”

Dany looked up into his blue eyes, questioning.

“I will lay awake and wake you at the slightest sign of discomfort, you do not need to relive your death. I will not allow it.”

A thin, pained smile spread across her face. “And when will you sleep?”

“When you are safe from your nightmares.”

“I might never be safe from them.”

“Then…  I might never sleep again.”

“Jorah!” She objected sharply, removing her head from his shoulder to give him a stern look.

“It is my duty to keep you from harm,” Jorah said. Gently, but firmly he placed her head back on his shoulder, “No matter what shape it takes.”

“It was your duty, but no longer.”

Jorah half chuckled, half huffed. She felt his forefinger under her chin, tilting her head up to meet his gaze. “You know of all the things I have done for you, and all I would have done. Do you think there is _anything_ I would not do for you now, now that you are mine?”

She was the one that had walked through fire and came out unburnt, and yet again, his eyes burned her where she stood, as hot as dragon fire. No, hotter. Dany looked into his eyes. They were blue, she knew that of course, but how many times had she looked into them without realizing that when fire burned hottest, it burned blue. The same blue as the irises of his eyes.

If she did not know of his love for her, of his devotion, she would have felt afraid that that fire would consume her, but there was no fear. There had never been any, there would never be any, not with him.

“You can not stay awake just to guard my sleep!” Dani argued. She would not let him trade her misery for his.

“No, Khaleesi, what I can not do is watch you jump awake, crying and screaming, frightened half out of your mind. _That,_ I can not do!”

His voice had sounded so thick and heavy that Dany knew that whatever else she might say, whatever she might command, his determination could not be budged.

Quietly, Dany accepted his offer, his sacrifice, and inside her soul, she felt his cathedral being raised up by yet another layer of bricks.

She peppered his chest with thank-you kisses before placing her head back on his shoulder.

Sleep eluded her though, maybe because she knew what lay behind her closed eyelids, or maybe because she felt guilty about Jorah’s sacrifice, and her mind had been busy coming up with ways in which to show him that he was just as loved by her.

He had given and given and she had only taken. It was her turn to give and his to take. She would make sure of it.

“Do you dream of your death?” Dany asked, from the same place on Jorah’s shoulder, realizing she had never inquired. 

“Sometimes.”

“Does it not haunt you?”

“No.” Jorah answered, his voice thick, “ I died protecting the one I love most in this world. It was a good death.”

 Dany's heart swelled at the sound but fell just as fast. She huffed, bitterly, as she remembered him slipping away in her arms. “It did not feel like a good death to me.”

Jorah clenched his jaw and nodded, then his arm around Daenerys tightened.

They sat like that for a while, the sound of night birds at their window filling the comfortable silence between them.

“Do you think Missandei is somewhere, out there, waiting for Grey Worm?” She asked.

“I do not know, I did not know the girl well, but I know that he would have waited for her for all eternity. If he is lucky, and Missandei loved him as much as he did her, then I suppose she is.”

“Then, she is,” Dany said with conviction and a small smile on her face. She hoped Grey Worm’s life would be long and happy, but she also hoped he wouldn’t keep Missandei waiting too long. Her friend needed someone, just as she had needed someone. Maybe in death, Missandei would finally be free and happy. It was a poor consolation, Dany knew, but it was all there was.

“Rest now, Khaleesi,” Jorah urged, “you need to sleep, I’ll watch over you.”

Dany wiggled her body into a more comfortable position in his arms and she felt Jorah’s lips lightly press to the top of her head.

_“Khaleesi.”_

He had called her that more than any other name. She thought she had heard every version, every inflection of it.  It had been a salute, a caution, a prayer and so much more.

But since they had stepped behind the red door, on the tip of his tongue, the vowels and consonants of that same, familiar word, had sounded like a term of endearment. _My dear! My love!_

Dany’s eyelids were heavy with sleep and her mind was getting fuzzy, yet it still ran with all the times Jorah had called her Khaleesi.

_“Careful, Khaleesi.”_

_“Trust me, Khaleesi.”_

_“Forgive me, Khaleesi.”_

_“Khaleesi…”_

Before drifting off, she realized that maybe, coming out of his mouth, _Khaleesi_ had meant _my love, my dear_ all along.

* 

The sun was setting in the Narrow Sea, painting the once pale blue sky in all the colors of the world. Beneath it, on the shores of the sea, sitting on her side on top of a green bench, Dany rested her head in Jorah’s lap, the tip of his fingers caressing her unclothed arm, slowly, deliberately.

She could see ships in the distance, some making their way out, others coming in for the day, but she could see no sign of life, not on the boats, not in the harbor or the streets, not anywhere. No one, save for her and Jorah.

Dany cast her yes to this man that was all hers and wondered if he was real, if he was truly here and not just a figment of her imagination. If he were not real, then why had she chosen him out of all the others she had lost along the way? If he were real, then _how_ had he found her?

“How are you here?” She asked, from her place in his lap, turning her head and looking up into dark-rimmed, blue eyes.

For the past three nights, he had slept barely a few hours put together in the early mornings, and only after she had awakened for the day. His nights had been spent watching over her, waking her up before her nightmares could do their worst. And on and off, Dany had managed to get back some of the rest she needed. The dark circles around her eyes were much lighter in color, but Jorah’s grew darker, making him look tired and older, and Dany hated that. As she had foreseen, he had traded her misery for his. She had tried to make him rest, but the stubborn man had refused each time.

“Am I still your queen?” She had asked as a last resort.

“Yes.” He had answered.

“Then I command you to rest!”

She had seen the fight in him, between his duty as a subject, a Queen’s guard and his worries as a friend, a lover, a consort even.

“No, Khaleesi.” He had answered.

It was the first time he had defied her like that and Dany was a little taken aback. She could have pressed it, of course, could have reminded him that he had sworn to obey her, to serve her.  She knew that it was all for his own good, but she couldn’t bring herself to take the choice away from him. She had done so in the past far too many times, she couldn’t, wouldn’t do it again. In their relationship, the scales had leaned so much in her favor, that she had to crane her neck up just to barely see the bottom of his pan from hers. It was time to move them towards equilibrium.

Instead of arguing with him, or commanding him, Dany had wrapped a hand around the nape of his neck and pulled him to her until their foreheads touched. She rubbed the tip of her nose to his as she said, “I love you, do not make me watch you wither away.”

She had felt his brows furrow and had seen his jaw clench, but he had remained silent.

“Please!”

Jorah sighed and a hand traveled to the back of her head, wrapping his fingers around the nape of her neck.

“I’ll sleep in the mornings, once you are awake. I see no one else here, you should be safe while I rest.”

Dany had kissed him then.

“ _How_ am I here?” Jorah echoed her question, bringing her mind back to the present.

“I do not know.” He said with a frown as his fingers moved to her hair. “There was nothing, just darkness and my thoughts of you and then… then I saw you standing in front of the red door. I gather I must have been waiting, waiting for my home to arrive.” 

Dany turned until her back was pressed flat to the bench, looking up at him from her place in his lap.

“I still wish my wait had been much longer.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, she heard something. A voice. She stood up, half startled and perked her ears trying to find the sound, to recognize the words. She couldn’t do either.

Jorah, ever alert, stood up then, his hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword, his body shielding hers.

“Did you hear something?” Daenerys asked.

“No,” Jorah said, his eyes moving from her to their surroundings, searching.

Dany realized that he had reacted to her and not the sound, or the voice, she had heard.

“What did you hear?”

Daenerys frowned and thought. She wasn’t sure what she heard, it sounded like distant mumbling.

“It must have been the wind.” She lied. She knew if she were to say something else, he would go back on his word and stay awake to guard her, even from an invisible threat.

*

In the living room of the house with the red door, Dany’s hand wrapped around the grip of his sword and lifted it out of the scabbard at his hip. She found it weighed heavy in her small hands. 

“Will you teach me how to use it?” She asked.

“As long as I’m here you will have no need for it, Khaleesi,” Jorah said. 

Dany lifted her eyes from the shiny blade. She thought of the muffled voice she had heard. She didn’t know if it was malicious or kind, she didn’t know if a sword would help in this place they found themselves, but she knew she never wanted to feel as powerless as she had felt in the fields of Winterfell, surrounded by wights. “If I had known how to better use it, maybe I could have kept you alive.”

“It was not—“ Jorah started, but he was cut off by two of Dany’s fingers pressed to his lips.

“No! No more talk of that night,” the memory of it was still fresh and raw, and painful in her mind, “just teach me.”

 Jorah nodded, then cleared a portion of the room of the small furniture.

“A smaller blade would have been better suited.” He said, moving behind her.

Dany couldn’t disagree. His sword was more than half her size, from tip to pommel it reached from her toes to her belly button. The grip was thick and long. The tip of her fingers barely made it past the halfway point of its girth, and there was room to spare along its length with both of her hands on it.

“Move your left foot forward, and your right one backwards,” Jorah said, his hands grabbing hold of her hips, positioning her. “There!”

“Now step forward with your right foot and swing your hips to the right, make yourself an even smaller target. Yes, like that. No, don’t keep the sword straight, angle it. Almost there, just a little more to the right. There! Good!”

Dany felt him pull her towards him barely a moment before he spoke. “Now return to the starting position, then step and strike at the same time.” He said as he guided her hips. Her backside was now pressed to him, the grip on her hips keeping her in place, and Dany gave him an accusatory smile that Jorah either ignored, or hadn’t noticed, but his hands let go of her.

“Right foot, hip swing, strike,” Dany said for herself more than anything before doing just that.

“Perfect, Khaleesi! Now do it again, but stop your blade mid-strike as if hitting another, then thrust forward.”

Dany side-eyed him.

“I will search for a blade for you tomorrow. If I can not find it, sticks might have to do. One does not learn to fight by imagination, but this way, you will at least know the basic steps and maneuvers.”

 She had held his sword for barely a few minutes and yet her arms and shoulders already protested. She hoped he would find her a smaller, lighter sword, but the negligible weight of sticks sounded pleasant to her. 

“Now move back into starting position and do it again.”

Dany did just that, alternating from the strike to the forward thrust movement each time.

“Repetition is the mother of learning.” He encouraged her as her shoulders begged to be released from the weight of the sword.

A few more swings and thrusts later, she set the tip of the sword on the stone tiled floor and leaned her weight on it, needing a moment or two to rest.

“You will need to increase your endurance,” Jorah observed to her slight annoyance.

He was right, but she knew that already. Her body had gotten weaker between the luxuries of Meereen and the simple comforts of Dragonstone. She had been much stronger when she had ridden for days and days at a time through the Great Grass Sea, when she had crossed the Red Waste on foot. Since Meereen she had only ridden Drogon and did little else to shape her body, to increase her strength.

“Come, let me teach you another maneuver,” Jorah said, his hands back on her hips.

She was perfectly capable of moving her body in the simple position. She knew it, he knew it, but she let him guide her nonetheless.

She could count on her fingers the times he had touched her since the day he had gifted her with the songs and stories of Westeros until he had taken his last breath. Since her mouth had found his, she found that he could barely keep her hands off her, as if the feel of her flesh under his hands assured him that she was real, as if he were scared she would dissipate if not touched, as if he was making up for all the times he couldn’t, wouldn’t allow himself to touch her. She didn’t mind it, not one bit, but rather liked it.

His touch was always different, always evolving. It had been shy and barely there, like a child testing the waters with the tip of his toe, then tender and loving, confident and strong, and as of late, she could feel just a trace of possession in it. But like everything about him, the possession was gentle, it wasn’t ownership, but rather belonging. _“You are mine.”_ His touch said with wonder and want and need. When she touched him back, _“I am yours,”_ her hands answered.

Her bottom was pressed to his bases and she could feel him through the cloth. The left corner of her lips moved upwards, then she pressed herself even harder, wiggling her behind as if she were absentmindedly searching for a better position. Behind her, she felt the response she had hoped for. The corner of her lips raised even higher. She let go of the sword and it hit the stone floor with a clank, then turned in his arms. Sword fighting had become the last thing on her mind.

There was no space between her body and his as she said, “Your queen needs a break.” She stood up on the tips of her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his. When she released them, she added, “Take me to our bedchamber.”

Jorah gave her one of his rare smiles, then lifted her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing, and made his way up the stairs.

She was no maiden, but a woman that knew what she liked and what she wanted and yet still, with him, she found new pleasures.

Her back arched off the bed and bedsheets wrinkled between clenched fists as his mouth and tongue worked her wet, hot folds in ways she hadn’t thought possible.

The Dothraki men did no such thing, they took their women like broodmares. And even after she had taught him how to give her the pleasure she needed, Drogo’s touches, although efficient, had been hurried and somewhat rough. His lips had never traveled below her bosom.

Daario’s lips had. It had been a pleasant surprise, but it had only been a precursor to other activities, and like most things with Daario, it had been more about him than her. He had been more interested in what _he_ had to offer, in how _his_ mouth and body brought her pleasure. It seemed to her that, for Daario, lovemaking had been more about pride and reassured self-confidence than the actual act itself.

Jon had been eager to please but lacked the knowledge to do so. She could tell he lacked the experience. His touches and kisses turned awkward and sloppy at times and while she had found it endearing, sometimes, she had also found it frustrating.

Jorah was different and she hadn’t expected it, she had never seen him with a woman, not in all the years she had known him. She had known he had been married though, but that had been long ago, she thought for sure he had forgotten how to draw pleasure from a woman’s body. She had been wrong.

His mouth had drawn pleasure from places she wouldn’t have thought, like the spot where her neck met the right side of her collar bone. That one spot behind her left knee, and the one just shy of her folds, on the inner side of her right thigh. And by the Old Gods and the New, the way he wrapped his whole mouth around those folds and kissed and licked as if she were the sweetest nectar, the way he meticulously and thoroughly mapped on them unbeknownst shapes and words, it made her entire body quiver and shake like a leaf caught in a storm. And unlike her past lovers, Jorah would not stop and seek his own pleasure until she had been spent, until her folds contracted under his lips and her legs trembled around his head.

If she had known of his skilled mouth and the way his hips moved, touching that place inside her that made her both lose and heighten all her senses, she would have taken him as her lover long ago.

The sun shone its rays and its heat through the open bedroom window, and Daenerys watched as Jorah, lying underneath thin, white sheets, slept next to her. His eyelids had not met the night before, while he had watched over her, nor did they the morning after.

He looked so peaceful when he slept. The wrinkles on his forehead flattened as if worry had been lifted from him. And her fingers itched to run across his cheeks, to feel the sharpness of their highest point, to be tickled by the ever-present stubble on his jaw, but she would not allow it. She would not risk his too little and much-needed sleep.

Looking at him like that, puffing away in his sleep, his features softened, her heart swelled while her belly twisted in a vice. She wanted to wrap her dragon wings around him and keep him just like that, forever, safe and at peace.

A smile crossed her face as she thought, _“I love you, my beautiful bear.”_

_"Zyhys oñoso jehikagon Aeksiot epi, se gis hen syndrorro jemagon."_

Daenerys heard then, in the same voice that had been muffled before. Her head lifted off her pillow and her hand reached for Jorah, but she stopped less than an inch before touching him.

There was no one around them, the door to their bedroom lay open and she could see no one beyond it, and the voice had echoed through the room, sounding otherworldly. The voice she now recognized as a woman’s sounded familiar but she could not place it. She did understand the High Valyrian words, though.

_We ask the Lord to shine his light and lead a soul out of darkness._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be the last chapter but this fic has taken a life of its own so expect more. 
> 
> ....I did say it was gonna be angsty 😇


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how this fic is tagged as angsty?  
> Well..... this is why....

 

 

Daenerys had quietly left Jorah to rest while she paced the stone tile of the living room up and down, again and again, wringing her hands as she walked. If the floors had been carpeted she might have run the carpet to the thread. 

_We ask the Lord to shine his light, and lead a soul out of darkness._

_Lord_ ….

 _R’hllor, Lord of the Light._ She had heard tales of him and his power. And one of his Red Priestesses had even helped her bring peace to Meereen, or tried to. She couldn’t remember the woman’s name, she had only met her once, briefly, in the halls of The Great Pyramid. But she remembered that she had been young and beautiful, with dark hair cascading down her back and— Dany stopped in her tracks. _That voice!_ The Priestess’s voice, the voice in the harbor, the one in the upstairs bedchamber, they were one and the same! 

Danny clenched her fists and started pacing the room again. 

On Dragonstone, she had met Melisandre too, and the older Priestess had called her the princess that was promised, but she had also vouched for her killer, Jon Snow, even urged her to meet with him. And there had even been talk that the same Lord of Light, through Melisandre, had brought Jon Snow back from the dead. 

When she had asked the first time, Jon had dismissed it as small-minded folk talk. When she had asked again, in the privacy of their bedchamber, the usually quiet man had talked of anything but. She had never received an answer from him. But she had seen the wounds on his body. The scars were thick, telling her that the blade had pierced deep, and they were many. She had traced the one right over his heart many times, with her fingers, as she had the others. No man could have survived that many wounds, and undoubtedly, not one to the heart. Her bear hadn’t. She hadn’t. 

Daenerys placed a hand on her bosom, where Jon’s blade had pierced her heart. There was no scar there, yet she could still feel the ghost of his blade. With a chill, she realized that the spot under her hand matched Jon’s own scar. The tales of his resurrection had to be true, she could think of no other explanation.  

Dany curled her lip in disgust and cursed the Lord of Light for bringing her murderer back to life. 

She unclenched her white-knuckled fists and shook them, trying to get the numbness out. 

What would the Lord of the Light want with her? She had served his goal, had saved Westeros from the Night King.

Could she dare think that she would be brought back too? And if so, for what purpose? At what cost?

Maybe she had imagined the voice, after all, that made more sense than any of her other thoughts.

 _“Zyhys perzys stepagon Aeksio Oño jorepi, se morghultas lys qelitsos sikagon.”_ She heard the same voice again and a chill ran down her spine.

_We beg the Lord to share his fire, and light a candle that has gone out._

She hadn’t imagined it. The voice was soft and comforting, and it gave her hope. She was fire made flesh, if there was a god in this world that would be on her side, it had to be R’hllor. 

_“Hen syndrorro, oños.” From darkness, light._

This time the words wrapped around her and clung to her like honey to a bear’s paw. Maybe the Lord of Light was amending a wrong, maybe he was rewarding her with life yet again. Maybe the Gods were not cruel.

_“Hen ñuqir, perzys”.  From ashes, fire._

They were pulling her, the words, pulling her away from this place and back into the land of the living. 

She had fought the pull of death in the throne room, but she had lost. The pull of life was weaker, she could fight it. She could choose to stay.

_“Hen morghot, glaeson.” From death, life._

“Khaleesi?”

_Jorah!_

She turned and saw him standing a few feet from her, sleep still clinging to his questioning eyes. 

She ran the short distance and leaped in his arms, wrapping herself around his neck. “You heard it too?” He had to have heard it! The words had been loud and clear, and he awakened and came for her just as the last of them echoed through the room. _He had to have heard it!_

His arms enveloped her waist, keeping her to him. “Heard what?”

“The voice? The Red Priestess of Volantis, you heard her too, right?”

But of course, Jorah knew of no such priestess. She had sent him away in search of a cure for Greyscale when the Priestess had walked the Great Pyramid. But he did know of Melisandre, the one that had came and helped them during the Long Night, and he had traveled beyond the wall with the Brotherhood without Banners. Jorah knew of the Lord of the Light, of that she was certain. 

“Are you all right, Khaleesi?” 

She clenched her jaw and pressed her forehead to the top of his shoulder. She wasn’t all right. She had been the only one that had heard it, life seemed to be calling to her and her alone. 

She slipped out of his arms only to look up into his eyes. 

“Life is pulling me back, I can feel it. I can feel it’s pull!” 

Jorah frowned at her, seeming not to understand. She knew she made little sense. Her thoughts were a whirlwind and she could barely find the words to speak.

She grabbed his hands in hers. “I can go back, my bear, I can draw breath again, in the land of the living.” She said, her words soft but hurried. “I can feel it, I can! The Red Priestess is calling me, the Lord of Light wants me to return.” 

If he were any other man, she knew he would have looked at her as if she were mad, but he was _Jorah_ , the man that had watched her walk into Drogo’s funeral pyre with three stone eggs only to come out unburnt, with three baby dragons. The man that had seen her escape the House of the Undying and it’s magic. He would never look at her like that.

 _Jorah. Her bear_. 

“Do you not feel it too? The pull of life? Please tell me you feel it too!” She asked her eyes never leaving his, her thumbs running over his knuckles.

 _Please let me bring him with. I need him! I’ve always needed him, now more than ever before, please!_ She silently begged the Lord of Light and whatever other Gods were listening. 

She saw his eyes turn a shade darker before they moved to look at their joined hands. “I do not. I only feel you.” 

Dany closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. The Gods were cruel. She felt his hands squeezing gently onto hers and her heart ached worse than when the blade had been lodged in it. It ached as if it were splitting right in two.

There was so much Dany wanted. She wanted revenge against those who had wronged her. She wanted to make things right. She wanted her legacy to be more than blood and ashes and she knew it wouldn’t, not with her dead and defeated. History was written by the winners, not the losers. But to do all that she had to leave Jorah, and the love and happiness she had found here, with him. He would be alone here and the thought pulled at her heartstrings. 

She too would be alone in the land of the living, save for her dragon child.  The child who’s pained shrieks still haunted her at night, the child that she loved as if she had grown him inside her womb. Her child was alone in the world and she could not bear the thought. She could not bear the thought of leaving Jorah either, but she had to choose. She had to leave one for the other. 

And if she were to return she would have nothing again, but she had built herself up from nothing before, she could do it again, she knew she could.

But Jorah, her bear. _Her bear!_

She looked up at him trying to read his face, she could always read it, no matter how he guarded it, and he had not guarded it since she had given herself to him. It had been a beautiful sight, seeing the untamed love and adoration in his eyes, his burning desire for her. But she couldn’t read it now. He had placed a mask upon it, and at the sight, a fist clenched around her already torn heart. 

“I can fight the pull, I can stay, I can choose to stay here, with you.” She said, her eyes wet and on his again, her brow furrowed and pained. 

 _Please ask me to stay! Ask me and I will have the strength to do so. Just ask, my bear, and I’ll stay!_  

Dany thought she saw him give the slightest of head shakes before he cupped a hand around her cheek, caressing it with a thumb. “Let go, Khaleesi, don’t fight it. There is so much life left in you, you deserve to live it.” 

“But I am happy here, with you.”

“But you are not alive.” The mask was upon his face, but it did not cover his eyes. His deep, blue, beautiful eyes. In them, she could see the shadow of moments long past. Of him on his knees below the throne of the Great Pyramid, begging for forgiveness; him standing before the same throne, rendered speechless by her, as she and Tyrion decided his faith; him in the pits of Meereen offering his life to her to do as she pleased with it. In those watered eyes of his she could catch a glimpse of all that he refused to say, and Gods, how she wished he would just say it. But he did not, instead, he said, “Remember what you have worked and fought for, you deserve to rule the Seven Kingdoms. Khaleesi, do not think of me, think of the life that has been robbed from you and go and live it!”

Dany’s lips shook before asking, “Do you not want me here?”

Jorah wrapped her in his arms and squeezed her tightly. “Oh, Khaleesi!” 

She pressed her cheek to his chest and wrapped her arms around him. She _knew_ he wanted her, knew he loved her, she had no doubt. Seven Hells, even a blind Westerosi man looking across the Narrow Sea onto Essos could see that he loved and wanted her. And yet he couldn't, or wouldn't bring himself to admit it now, even when he had admitted it so freely not even a day ago. If he couldn't do that, she knew he would never think to ask her to stay, would never think to put himself above her, not unless she made him. “Ask me to stay! Just ask me and I will!” She urged him.

His arms held on to her like he never wanted to let go, but he said nothing.

“Please!”

He shook his head. “No, Khaleesi, I can not. You have no peace here, go back and find your peace. Go back and live the life that was taken from you, please, Khaleesi. Please, I beg you!” 

Dany cried in his arms, quiet sobs and hot tears.

Beneath her wet cheek, she heard his heart beating fast in his chest. 

“If I go back, they will pay.” She said as Jorah’s splayed hand was petting her head, comforting her. “They will feel my wrath and my vengeance as their mouths fill with blood and as their skin prickles with fire.” _Knowing that, do you still want me to go?_ She asked without asking.

“The blood of your enemies, not the blood of innocents.” Jorah gave his answer. 

She had hoped those words would make him reconsider and ask her to stay. She had been wrong again. She knew better, she did, and yet she hoped he would be selfish this time, just this time. 

Dany nodded. “The blood of my enemies.”

Around her the incantation echoed through the room and pulled at her, trying to move her beyond the threshold of the red door. She anchored her dragon claws into her bear’s back. She wasn’t ready to let go.

Jorah kissed the top of her head and said between strands of white hair, “Go, Khaleesi, life is waiting for you!”

Dany lifted herself on the tips of her toes and kissed him. In that kiss, she put all the words she could not utter and all that he meant to her. 

He kissed her back, his hands engulfing her, sliding from her head, down her back, her arms, her face. He was kissing her like he was consuming her, like he would never get to do it again and he could not get enough. She whimpered in his mouth, then met his kiss with just as much want and need. 

They were both long out of breath before their mouths slowed their pace. Jorah pressed his lips to hers one last time before pulling back. 

“Will you wait? Dany asked.

Jorah's lips shook before answering. His fingers were combing her now messy hair, arranging her two twisted braids behind her ears, while his bright and watered eyes were looking into hers. “You are young and beautiful, and life is waiting for you… You will find others, many others, younger, better, more worthy. I am the past, Khaleesi.”

Dany's lips shook too, but with anger at his words. “Will you wait?” 

“You do not know what life will offer you. Your heart will change, you will not want to return." 

“Will you wait?” She choked out, begging him to give her the answer she needed.

“For a thousand years!” 

A low whimper left her lips. She swallowed the knot in her throat and lifted her hand to his cheek. “Go to Bear Island, will yourself there, like you willed yourself next to me, don’t wait here, go home! I will find you there, I will!” Her eyes were filled with determination, her words soft, but full of resolve. “This house is no longer my home, _you_ are. I will find you, there’s nothing that could ever stop me, nothing that could keep me from you. Wherever you are I will find you! I will find you! When it’s all said and done, I will return to you !” 

Jorah reached for the hand on his cheek and kissed the palm of it, then nodded ever so slightly.

Dany’s thumb crossed over his lips, the lips that had confessed his love for her, that had counseled her, that had kissed her, that had loved her.

As she let her hand fall from his face, her heart felt blade pierced again.

“I love you, Jorah Mormon of Bear Island.” She said before turning from him.

Her feet took her towards the red door, but her tear-filled eyes could barely see the familiar path.

“Khaleesi!” He called after her, her foot just behind the threshold.

Dany turned and looked at him. A quiet sob died on her parted, shaking lips. 

 

  

“Live your life, I have lived mine. Do not hurry back.” 

Dany did all she could find the strength to do, she nodded. Then turned from him for the last time. Inside her heart, she locked the woman she had allowed herself to be with him. Tears were still streaming down her face, but her back straightened, and her head was held higher. The woman was gone now, replaced by the Dragon Queen.

The Dragon Queen would take her revenge on all that had wronged her. They would pay! Pay for her death, for the peace she could not find in the afterlife, pay for losing what she had found behind the threshold of the red door.

Daenerys disappeared into the light of day, and Jorah’s knees hit the stone floor beneath him, his head bowed. 

Only then did he allow his tears to run freely.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daenerys deserved to live, and the man that had spent the last years of his life protecting his Khaleesi, the man that had died for her, that would have done _anything_ for her, that man would have sent her back to the land of the living, no matter what it cost him. His love had never been possessive or self-serving. It had always been self-sacrificing. 
> 
> Me, while writing this (Jonny Cash voice): "I hurt myself today"
> 
> While I do not want to spoil what will happen in the future, I do want to say: _Please Trust Me!_
> 
> Let me know your thoughts on this. I hope I made you feel something....


	6. Chapter 6

 

Inside the Temple of R’hllor, air rushed back into Dany’s lungs and she jumped awake, jumped alive.

Outside, Drogon shrieked. 

She gulped air as if she had just broken through the water surface after minutes underwater and regretted it a moment later as the air burnt down her windpipe, making her wrap a hand protectively around her throat. Her fingers twisted around a thin, long, chain, she pulled on it and at the end saw a red ruby. 

“Do not remove the necklace, Daenerys.” She heard the same voice she had heard behind the red door and looked up at the dark-haired woman, questioning. 

The woman smiled at her, warm and comforting. “Kinvara.” She said as if she knew the question on Dany’s mind. “Come,” she added, wrapping a hand around Dany’s, lifting her from the stone slab altar that she had awakened on, “we have much to discuss.”

There were a thousand questions she had for the priestess, but one burned brighter than the rest. “Drogon?” She had to see her child, had to know he was safe. 

“I will take you to him.”  

As their feet walked across the threshold of the temple, the sun was still high in the sky. It looked paler and felt much less potent than she remembered it being on this continent, but the air still felt warm on her cheeks. And the trees, with their leaves above her head and below her feet, were brown and golden, not drenched in the white of snow and iced over. The winds of winter had not yet crossed the Narrow Sea and made their way into Essos. 

The air was warm and yet there was a strange chill in her bones. Dany pulled her shoulders together and rubbed her arms for warmth.  

“How long has it been?” She asked the priestess, as they walked through the temple’s garden. 

“Three days. Drogon brought your body to me, he flew without stopping until he had reached his destination. I believe he is exhausted.” She said in her pleasant, even tone. 

 _Three days?_   Dany blinked. It felt much longer, it had been much longer. For her, time had lost its meaning in the other realm, but she did remember the nights and the nightmares they brought, she had counted them. Behind the red door over a week had passed. If time passed slower there than here, then…

 _“For a thousand years!”_ Jorah had promised her. 

_Gods, no!_

She closed her eyes for a moment, pushing the horrible feeling her revelation had brought with it. She opened them, as well as her mouth to speak, but Kinvara had taken a sharp turn and Drogon was brought into sight.  

Dany’s heart sank into her belly. She ran for her child who in return did the same, whimpering and shrieking as he flapped his wings about, claws digging into the dirt as he crawled his way to her.  

Drogon stopped just shy of knocking her to the ground then pressed his snot to her body and whined. Dany leaned into him, her face now pressed to his scaled cheeks. The coldness in her bones eased just a bit. 

Her fingers ran across the rough scales as she said, “I’m here, my child. I’m here. I won’t leave you, I promise!” The tears in her eyes breached the dam of her eyelids.

They stayed like that for a while, until Drogon’s whimpers had quieted down and her tears had run dry. She pressed her lips to him before taking her leave, “Rest now my child, you did so well!” Drogon almost purred. 

“How did he know to come here? Dany asked the Red Priestess.”

“I called to him, and he listened.” She answered as they made their way back into the imposing temple as if her words made perfect sense.

Dany didn’t press for more, instead, she asked, “Why have you brought me back?” 

The priestess looked at her, steel eyes boring into violet tinted ones. “You’re special Daenerys, more so than you think. You brought magic back into the word. The night you were born, the night of the storm, magic started seeping back into the Realm. The night your dragons hatched, magic blossomed. The day Jon Snow killed you it started to trickle out of the word again. Our lord can not let that happen, he has much left to do here, too many plans for us.” The woman smiled at her. “You are a steel rod in a lightning storm, a line between this world and the one where magic resides. Through you, magic flows into our realm and we, his priestesses, use it to further his glory.”  

Dany had listened with a frown. She knew she had her own magic. Fire did not burn her, and she had escaped the House of the Undying using that magic and her dragons, but what the Priestess had told her was beyond anything she imagined. Her brows furrowed before asking, “Thus, you need me?”

They were inside the temple now and Kinvara was making her way up a circular, stone staircase. Daenerys followed suit. 

“Yes, you and your dragon child.” 

“The Lord of the Light needs me.” Dany thought out loud. The corner of her lips turned upwards, if she was valuable enough, she could make demands. 

“I would not go as far, Dragon Queen, you are a mortal, as you well know. He is a _God!_ ” Kinvara said as she reached the top of the stairs, feet carrying her forward, towards the end of a long corridor.  

“Your Lord, through one of your priestesses, brought Jon Snow to me, if he were as Godly as you claim, and if he needs me, then why would he have me cross paths with my murderer?”

Kinvara stopped and glanced at her, a thin smile adorning her face. “You blame the Lord for that? Why do you not blame Tyrion, he was the one who truly convinced you to summon Jon to Dragonstone, was he not? And why not go back further? Why not blame Ser Jorah for bringing Tyrion to you? After all, it was the imp and his poor advice that ate at your armies, your allies, your claim, was it not?” 

Her words took Dany off-kilter and made her stomach turn. She remembered all the times Tyrion had failed her, how piece by piece the cards had been stacked against her, how she had lost and lost and lost. Highgarden, Dorne, the Iron fleet, Viseryon. So many wrong choices! And Jorah’s name, on the women’s lips, felt like a cut, sharp enough to draw blood. 

How much did this woman know? Somethings? _Everything?_ The thought did not sit well with her. 

“Your Lord Of Light is a God, _He_ should have known better than a mere man!” She spat out at the unfair comparison.  

Kinvara gave her another smile, then continued down the white marble corridor. 

“Knowing the past is easy, all we need is the Lord and a little magic. The present is a little trickier, but knowing the future is much harder. And it’s because of you… _people._ ” She said as if she were not a part of that category, with your free will and your ever-changing minds and feelings, with your loves, friendships, and betrayals. _You_ are what makes seeing the future so much harder. The Lord sees it, but it changes, sometimes with just the beat of a butterfly’s wings.”

“Nonetheless, your Lord failed me, I have no need for those who fail me, I’ve had plenty of them.”

“Strong words leave the mouth of the one who had laid dead on a stone slab less than the strike of an hour ago,” Kinvara said, a smirk pulling at her full lips. 

Dany wished she could wipe that smile, along with all the others the priestess had given her off her face, it reminded her of the arrogant Captain Mero of the Second Sons. Dany held her head higher, she wasn’t sure if the arrogance was unfounded, as the captain’s, or true, but at the end of the day, that captain’s head had rolled at her feet. 

But that was _not_ this, the priestess will not lose her head, this was just a game they were playing. Granted, the Lord of the Light heald most of the cars, but she had seen a few of them and if she could only play her one card right… 

“Your Lord owes me a life, a favour,” Dany said, her voice strong.

The priestess stopped in front of a white door, her hand on the knob. “He has already given it back.” She said.

“Not mine, another’s,” Dany said as Kinvara walked through the threshold of a large bedchamber.

“Careful, Daenerys, those who are ungrateful can have their gifts taken away.”

Dany smirked, it felt good to throw it back at her. “Your words might have frightened me, if you had not shown that you need me. Repay me for saving the Realm as your Lord wished, repay me for your failure, give me back a life!”

Inside the room, Kinvara chuckled as her fingertips traced the white, satin sheets of the bed. “I know who it is you want, but he is gone.” In a softer voice, she added, “Even if you could demand things from our Lord, which you can not, not even the Lord of Light could raise a body from the ashes, and it was you who set his body ablaze, remember?”  

Dany curled her lips. This was not what she wanted to hear. Before she could open her mouth to argue, to beg if need be, the priestess continued. “But he will wait for you, however long it takes, he will. Though once your time comes again you might feel differently, your heart might change.” 

“It will not!”

Kinvara raised an eyebrow, a hint of brass tinted her voice. “It has changed before. Drogo, Daario, Jon. Who is to tell?”

Dany wrinkled her nose and clenched her fists. “I am! You may have seen glimpses of my life, but do not assume to know me, or my heart, priestess!” She spat out. If she were a dragon, she knew steam and smoke would have left her nostrils. How dare this… _woman_ assume to know her or her heart! How dare she say such things!

How dare her words be so close to Jorah’s… 

So damn close. Could the woman see in the afterlife too? 

The anger fizzled out at the memory of him, at the possibility of finding the answer to the question that irked her. “Time… time seemed— _was_ different there. Longer.” She said, her voice soft, “How long will he wait?” 

Kinvara sighed before answering. “I do not know, the Lord has no dominion over that realm.” Her voice was soft yet again, “But time is relative. A lifetime can pass in a blink of an eye, a moment can stretch for an eternity. Only he can answer that question, once you see him again, if you choose to do so. Otherwise, the answer is an eternity, is it not?

Kinvara moved towards her, her small steps under her long, red dress, making the priestess look as if floating above the marble floor. “You have been brought back to live your life, not to worry about the dead,” she said her fingers wrapping around the necklace on Dany’s neck, “let us make sure it is a long life.” 

“What is this?” She asked looking down at the small ruby.

“Protection.” 

“From?”

“The Three-Eyed Raven. I know what you seek to do, now that you are back. The Raven sees all, he will foil your plans before they are fully hatched, or he would have, if it were not for the Lord’s gift. Wear the necklace always and the Raven will not be able to see you, know your thoughts, your plans. Take it off and you are at his mercy.” 

Dany frowned, and as Kinvara’s fingers left the ruby, her own wrapped around the stone. Such a small thing, such great power it held in its red twinkle.  

“There is something I must attend to now, but we will talk later, Dragon Queen. This shall be your bedchamber for as long as you wish to remain with us.” She said, her eyes moving around the room.  “I will have someone draw you a bath and bring you a change of clothes, the ones you are wearing are still stained with your blood.” 

For the first time, Dany paid mind to her clothes and the dried, flaky blood on them. Her mouth filled with bile and her heart with hate. 

 

The bath had been a welcome affair, but even though the water had been all but boiling, it did not warm the coldness inside her. Maybe the coldness was the grave that never was, still clinging to her. Or maybe the coldness was not of the body, but of the heart, like something inside had been killed alongside her and had not returned with her resurrection. Or maybe that piece of her had stayed behind, in the afterlife.  

Dany submerged herself fully under the bathwater, not wanting to think of it further, and wishing the fireplace inside her bedchamber had been lit and large enough for her to fit in. Maybe there, on top of burning logs, her skin licked by the flames, she would feel warm again. 

She didn’t break the water’s surface until her breath had been all but spent. Her fingers moved to the wound between her bosoms, slightly to the left. The skin was split and stretched there, and she could see her flesh underneath, an angry pink. The wound would close, she knew, but a scar will always remain. 

The servant girl that had drawn her the bath had also brought her clothes. A red dress, long and simple, similar to the one the priestess wore; a light blue one, with small, white lace sewn around the corset, fit for a queen; a pair of burgundy leather pants and a bodice the same color, as well as a few long sleeve shirts. Dany looked down at them. She was queen of nothing now, and none of her plans had any need for long, flowing dresses. She chose the pants and the bodice. What she needed was armor.

“I have brought you some supper,” Kinvara said, the strike of an hour later, as she made her way inside Daenerys’ chamber, a plate of bread, cheese, and figs in her hands. She placed it on the writing table, next to the window, then added. “Eat, your body needs the food.”

Dany had no appetite. The past hour she had spent lost in thought. There was no plan she could hatch, she knew nothing of what had happened after her death, but she could daydream of the ways she would take her revenge on those who had betrayed her. “Tell me all that you know, all that I need to know and more. Where are my people, the Unsullied, the Dothraki? And where is _Jon Snow_?” Her lips curled at the taste of his name in her mouth.

“Jon and Tyrion are held prisoners by your armies, there will be a council of Lords soon, to determine their fate, and the new king.”

Dany huffed. _What had they done to deserve the right to choose?_ It was her, her dragons and her people, that had saved them from the Long Night, it was her that had saved them from Cersei Lannister. 

….It was her that had turned King’s Landing to ashes. She sighed.

A council, a trial? Why wasn’t Jon dead already, why hadn’t her blood riders sliced him to shreds, why hadn’t the Unsullied pierced his heart with speers? Had they forsaken her in death, when they should have followed her? Nothing made sense. “Who will they choose as king, do you know, can your magic tell you?” 

“I do not know, I can not be certain, but there is only one I can think of, The Three-Eyed Raven, Brandon Stark.”

Dany narrowed her eyes. That made taking back her throne a lot more complicated. “This necklace,” she said, pulling it out from inside her shirt, “only protects me from his eyes? What about Drogon, can he see him?”

“Dragons are very special, they are much harder to _see_ than humans, though he could if he tried hard enough. But there is a spell, I can cast it upon your dragon, hide him from the Raven.”

“Blood magic?”

“No. No such thing.” Kinvara chuckled,  “It’s quite funny. I will be using the magic Drogon brought into the world to protect him.”

“Do it!” Dany said and the priestess' eyes twitched. “Please!” She added, softly. She could not afford to be vinegar. Before her stood her only _friend_ within hundreds of miles. She had to be pure, mountain-flowers honey. 

Kinvara bowed her head slightly. 

With her and Drogon protected that still left the rest of her people. If Bran could see them, then he would see her coming. She let that thought simmer in her head. She didn’t bother asking the priestess for help with it, she still had thousands of people in her army, there was no way to keep them all hidden. 

“Do you know of any Valyrian steel in Volantis?” Dany asked instead. 

“Some.”

“I need it. Could you procure it for me?”

“No one will relinquish such treasured steel willingly.”

“No, they will not, but I’m sure you have your ways.”

The priestess smiled. “What will you do next?”

“As soon as you bring me the steel I will fly to Meereen. There’s someone there I need to see.” The only other friend she had on this side of the world, Daario Nahaaris. “Now tell me everything I should know, Kinvara. Everything that will keep me alive, and keep magic in the Realm.” 

The priestess’ lips twisted upwards before her mouth opened and did not close until the moon rose high in the night sky. 

 

It was the dead of night before sleep finally took Daenerys. The priestess had left long ago, but Dany still twisted and turned underneath the thick blankets, she had come accustomed to falling asleep with her head on top of her bear’s chest, her cheek tickled by gold and ginger hair, an arm draped over his chest. 

She missed his lips pressed to the top of her head, his arm wrapped around her waist, his fingers in her hair. All those little things had given her such comfort, and now that she was without them, she realized just how much she missed them. Missed him. She twisted and turned until the exhaustion of the day finally took her. 

Her sleep was restless, though. 

Even here, Jon followed her inside her dreams. His body close to hers, his lips on hers. She, unable to move, unable to escape, to scream even. 

His blade pushed inside her chest again and Dany awoke screaming from the pain, the horror of the act. Her hand reached across the bed for comfort, for Jorah, just as it had every night since her death. 

Her fingers found nothing. He was not there.

Tears filled Dany’s eyes. She curled her body around a pillow and muffled her screams into it. Her tears percolated through the pillow sheet.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Considering how in season 8 Westeros was _plot sized_ and people moved from one place to the other at the _speed of plot_ , I'm going to continue that trend.
> 
> I also feel like the Gods of Game of Thrones are more like the Greek Gods than the Christianity God, as in they're not omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and they like to fuck around with people's lives more.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **! In canon description of violence coming your way !**
> 
>  
> 
>  _Keligon_ is High Valyrian for _Stop_.  
> 

 

 

 

Unable and unwilling to sleep, Daenerys stayed awake the rest of the night. With effort and a heavy heart, she pushed away the thoughts of Jorah and the house with the red door and focused her mind on all that Kinvara had told her. 

The priestess had talked for many hours, proud and happy to share, like a bird singing its perfectly crafted morning song, and Dany had learned of Bran’s journey as the Three-Eyed Raven, of Sansa’s plotting, and Jon’s and Tryon’s betrayal. 

Dany had not died on the fields, nor between the walls of Winterfell, but her faith had been sealed there, in the few days spent surrounded by wolves. 

When Kinvara had delved into the history of the Raven and the Old Gods, the priestess’ eyes had burned a fiery red. Her words were laced with hatred as she talked about the Old Gods, and with love and adoration as she spoke of her God.  And Dany couldn’t help but feel that underneath it all, even if she had been a queen to the people of the Realm, she was but a mere pawn in the game between the Old Gods and R’hllor. The feeling stayed with her, unable to be shaken off. 

Her mind was now an ocean of knowledge. No, she would not delude herself, what she knew was a sea, or better yet, a lake. She had been told plenty, but all she knew were stories from Kinvara’s mouth, maybe they had been filtered, or embellished, maybe pieces were missing, by accident or on purpose, she did not know, not for sure, but maybe she could find out.

Dany considered the priestess a friend, she had proven herself to be one, but that did not mean she trusted her. The Daenerys that trusted died days ago, and this Daenerys needed to know if there was any truth to her suspicions. 

When the grey light of dawn inundated her bedchamber, she pushed the covers off herself. There was much to do today. Dany’s hands stopped before gripping the leather pants, then moved towards the red dress.

The priestess and her Lord were powerful, they could see the past and the present, and glimpses of the future. And maybe the priestess could even read her mind too. She’d done it yesterday, hadn't she? Had guessed whose life she wanted back. But Dany’s mind had been so filled with thoughts of Jorah that even a carnival charlatan could have made that guess. Could the priestess read her just as well if she kept her thoughts to herself? Maybe she could, maybe she couldn’t, either way, she was going to find out. 

 _Honey, not vinegar._ Dany put on the red dress. If she looked like one of them, they would think of her as such.

“Daenerys!” Kinvara exclaimed as Dany made her way inside the temple’s grand prayer room, “Red suits you so well, you almost look like one of my sisters.” There was a pleasant smile on the priestess’ face as she saw Dany with her unbraided, silver locks cascading down her shoulders and settling on top of the red fabric, her small, ruby necklace dangling free over her bosom.

Dany offered the priestess a pleasant smile of her own. The game was on. Dany had spent her entire life hiding her true feelings behind many masks, only in the afterlife had she allowed herself to be free of them. They were back now, and she had all the skills and the practice to offer the priestess an illusion of her own, the Daenerys that the priestess and the Lord wanted. 

“I do not believe I have thanked you, or the Lord of Light for all your gifts. I am sorry if I seemed ungrateful.” Dany said with a slight bow of her head.

Kinvara smiled, then bowed her head in return.

“And thank you for all you have shared with me, it will prove very useful in what is to come, I am sure.”

“I am here to guide and protect you, Daenerys, your life is very important to us.”

Dany smiled warmly. 

“How do you know all that you have told me?” Dany asked conversationally, taking small, reverent steps towards the priestess, “How does the Lord’s power work?” 

“I saw it, in the flames.”

“The flames?”

“Yes.”

“Can anyone see inside the flames?”

“No. Just the ones that the Lord chooses.”

“Am I one of his chosen ones? Could I look into them and see?”

Kinvara lifted a brow. 

Dany said nothing, just waited, her face set in a neutral expression with just a hint of curiosity.

“Let us find out.” The priestess said, then moved towards a conical torch where one of the Lord’s eternal flames burned. The mouth of the silver metal torch was as wide as a carriage wheel and tall enough for its lip to reach beneath Dany’s bosom, but there was nothing special about the flame. The same gold, orange and white as every flame she had seen danced inside and above the cone. 

“Think of what you want to see, and if the Lord has granted you this power, you will see it.”

She had to choose something safe. Something, _someone_ that would raise no suspicion from Kinvara, someone whose face wouldn’t make her falter. After last night, she couldn’t take the sight of Jon, nor Jorah, for two completely different reasons. 

She thought of Daario Naharis. And thought, and thought while she looked into the flames. She saw nothing. But the flame’s dance had an almost hypnotizing effect on her, lulling her to sleep, beckoning her to rest inside. If she could’ve fully fit inside the cone, she might have crawled in. 

And then it happened. Daario’s familiar face danced inside the flame. 

Dany gasped. “I see him! I can see inside the flames.”

Kinvara smiled at her. “The Lord has bestowed many gifts on you.” 

Dany had to drag her eyes from Daario, to look upon Kinvara. “He has, and I am very thankful.” She said, and it was not a lie. 

Her eyes were drawn back to the flames where she saw Daario, sitting inside the council room of the Great Pyramid, surrounded by a few other men she did not recognize, his feet propped up on the table, looking self-assured and bored. Dany shook her head in mild amusement. _Some things never change._

She let go of her thoughts of the Second Son and the man vanished from inside the flames. Dany looked at Kinvara. “Thank you for this.” She was being honest again, but she would not have uttered the words had she not wanted to get under the priestess’s skin. Queens did not give thanks, they received gifts and often took and took what they wanted without a single word of gratitude. Dany had been a true queen for years. 

“It is the Lord you should give thanks.”

Dany suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Religion had never meant anything to her, Targaryens answered to neither men nor Gods, and the Gods had only taken and taken from her. Resurrection had been the first gift she had received from a God. Still, she bowed her head slightly.

“Would you like to join us for morning prayers?

Dany wanted no such thing. “Yes, I believe I do.” She lied, and the joy on Kinvara’s face told her that after all, the priestess could not read thoughts. Dany smiled.

 

A couple of excruciatingly boring hours later, Dany finally found herself free to do as she pleased. Her steps took her back to the grand prayer room where she stopped in front of the most secluded torch she could find and looked inside the flames.

Instead of thinking of Bran, or Jon, or Tyrion, she thought of herself and how she had lost everything she cared about in such a short time. Inside the flames an image took shape.  

Tyrion and Sansa appeared in the fire. They were at Winterfell, just days before the Long Night. She saw them talking as they looked down at the courtyard, and Dany wasn’t sure why the flames showed her this, she gathered nothing of importance from their small talk.  _“I used to think you were the cleverest man alive,”_ Sansa said, then took her leave. Down in the courtyard, Dany saw Bran looking up at them. 

The flames ate the image, then Winterfell’s library came into sight. She saw Samwell Tarly, herself and Jorah there. Without realizing her hand dipped into the flames, trying to touch Jorah’s face, a low whimper dying on her lips. Her fingers touched nothing but fire. She pulled her hand out before the flames ate at her sleeves and closed her eyes to stop the tears that prickled behind them. 

When she opened them again she saw that the flames had followed Sam. _“It’s time to tell Jon the truth._ ” Bran had said to the Tarly.

_“You’re his brother, you should tell him.”_

_“I’m not his brother. He trusts you more than anyone. Now is the time.”_

 The flames twisted again and down in the crypts she saw Sam with Jon. Her nostrils flared at the sight of him. _“Daenerys, she executed my father and brother… She didn’t tell you?”_

Dany clenched her jaw. She had only just found out that Samwell was a Tarly, but that did not seem to matter to the man. 

_“Your mother was Lyanna Stark and your father, your real father was Rhaegar Targaryen. You’re Aegon Targaryen, true heir to the Iron Throne. You’re the true king.”_

The flames took the two and morphed them into Bran sitting outside, in the cold, northern night, watching Jaimie Lannister dismount his horse. 

 Within a blink, the image shifted to Bran and Jaimie in the Godswood. 

_“Why didn’t you tell them?”_

_“You won’t be able to help us in this fight if I let them murder you first.”_

The flames turned again and she saw herself holding Jorah as he took his last breath. Her knees buckled, and Dany had to grip the burning hot metal of the torch just to keep herself from sinking to the marble floor. All the anguish and desperation she had felt then came rushing back to her. She couldn’t keep a  broken sob from escaping her lips and she swallowed around the painful knot in her throat. Then, she saw whom her eyes had not seen that night. In the distance, Melisandre, the red priestess with the power to bring people back to life, looked at her and her dead knight and kept walking. 

Dany’s hands clenched on the hot metal, her knuckles turned white as her fingers dug painfully into the unyielding metal. 

The image altered again, and Dany was glad for it. The Godswood took shape, as did Bran, but there was no Jaimie this time. Arya, Sansa, and Jon had taken his place. 

“ _Tell them,”_ Jon said to Bran, and Bran obliged. 

The flames turned them to ashes and she saw Sansa and Tyrion again, looking down at her and her dragons, behind the protection of the castle’s parapet, alive and safe because of her people’s sacrifice, because of her dragons. 

 _“What if there’s someone else? Someone better.”_ Sansa asked.

There was no Bran there, but a few feet from them, perched on the parapet, a  black raven with milked over eyes looked at the two. 

The flames turned into the Unsullied camp outside King’s Landing. Jaimie was tied to a pole, Tyrion sat close to his brother, whispering. _“Escape, the two of you together. Do it, if you don’t you’ll never see Cersei again. Swear to me!”_

_“You have my word.”_

The camp turned into the underbelly of the Red Keep where she saw Tyrion kneeling on top of bricks and rubble, crying over the bodies of his sister and his brother.  

The image coiled around the flames and she saw Tyrion in his cell. He paced the small room as he talked, Jon listening to his every word. 

 _“Love is the death of duty.”_ Jon had said.

_“Sometimes, duty is the death of love,” Tyrion answered._

“Love?” Dany scoffed, her lips curled in disgust. “Love? As if either of you knows the meaning of the word.”

The flames warped around the men and King’s Landing Dragonpit took shape. Between those ruins of Targaryen might, the people who had hated and used her in life, the ones for which her Dothraki and Unsullied men had paid the ultimate price, chose their new king. 

_“If we choose you, will you wear the crown?”_

“ _Why do you think I came all this way?”_

Dany huffed. It _was_ Bran. Kinvara had been right. Her mouth filled with bile as the new king of Westeros named Tyrion his Hand. 

The fires twisted and turned once again. 

 _“Our new king has chosen to send you to the Night’s Watch,”_ Tyrion said, and Dany could not help but laugh. Not a true laugh, no, just a bitter, little thing. 

Jon had received no punishment. The North was his home, the Night’s Watch his brotherhood. 

 _“Was it right, what I did?”_ Jon asked, a broken look on his face.

 _“What we did,”_ Tyrion answered.

_“It doesn’t feel right.”_

Dany’s entire face twisted in disgust, her lips shook and her hands clung to the metal even harder. She had no pity for either man, she felt only contempt and disgust and so much anger. Her Targaryen blood was fire in her veins, burning hot and bright, singeing her from the inside.  

The flames turned the two traitors to ashes and nothing else came into sight. 

Dany turned and made her way out of the prayer room. Her steps fell hard and fast on the marble floor, her fists white-knuckled to her side, her jaw clenched. She wanted nothing more than to mount Drogon and seek out all those who had betrayed her, who had been the architects of her downfall.

Out of the temple, she ran for her dragon, taking off on his back as soon as she was settled between his shoulder blades, leading him towards Westeros. 

 _Fire and blood. Fire and blood._ Those words ran through her mind over and over, and over again, casting fresh logs in the fire of her anger. She wanted to watch the imp burn before her, to hear his screams as the fire melted his skin, as flesh fell from his bones; to level the Red Keep with dragon fire while the  Three-Eyed Raven stood inside it. She wanted to see the red wolf of Winterfell beg for mercy, just as she had begged Jon to keep his secret. She would show no mercy, she would cleanse the North of Starks. And Jon, oh, she wanted to spit in his face, to take him to his knees and stab him a thousand times while looking him in the eyes, to twist the blade inside his body over and over again and delight in his pain. 

_They deserve it, all that I am about to give them and more. They deserve it! What they don’t deserve is to draw breath, standing tall and victorious on the corpses of the blood of my blood; of my unsullied._

And Melisandre. Dany gritted her teeth. She was glad the priestess was already dead. If not, she knew she would anger the Lord of Light by killing his subject. 

The priestess could have come to her during the Long Night, she could have brought Jorah back. She hadn’t. She hadn’t even tried. 

_She hadn’t even tried..._

Dany’s fists clenched on Drogon’s spikes. Something clicked inside her head. 

Losing her most trusted advisor had been the first step towards her downfall. If she had had Jorah by her side she knew her destiny would have been different, no matter what the Starks had plotted behind her back. He would have given her the support she had needed, would have been a rock in her time of need. And King’s Landing would have been spared.

 _“The dragons will purify nonbelievers by the thousands, burning their sins and flesh away.”_ She remembered Tyrion repeating Kinvara’s words after she dad returned from Vaes Dotrak. A cold chill went down Dany’s back, a chill colder than the wind above the sea that was lapping at her exposed skin. 

Bran’s monotone voice played inside her head. “ _Why do you think I came all this way?”_

He knew! He knew he would be crowned king. What else had he known? 

Dany had not expected to see much of young Stark in the flames, but he had been there almost at every step, lurking in the shadows, watching, waiting. _Plotting?_

 _“I’m not his brother. He trusts you more than anyone. Now is the time.”_ He had urged Samwell.

Now is the time. _Now!_ Right before the Long Night.

 _“You won’t be able to help us in this fight if I let them murder you first.”_ Dany remembered Bran’s words to Jaimie Lannister. But the one-handed knight had been about as much help in the fight as any northerner, Unsullied or Dothraki. With or without him, the fight would’ve had the same outcome. Unless that was not the fight that Bran had spoke of. 

Danny huffed. Yes, Jamie had been a very useful tool in another fight. The fight against her. He had driven a further wedge between her and her Hand. 

Tyrion had freed his brother, causing her to lose the last of her faith in him. He had plotted to save both him and his sister, had cried over their dead bodies under the ruins of the Red Keep and finally he had convinced Jon to murder her. 

It all made sense now. She _was_ a pawn. A pawn in the fight between gods. 

The Lord of Light had known the road she would go down if she lost and lost, and lost again. He knew she would lose part of herself with each death, and that was what the Lord wanted, he wanted her dragons to purify nonbelievers by the thousands, to burn their sins and flesh away, and she had unknowingly done his bidding. But ultimately, the Old Gods, through Bran, the Three-Eyed Raven, had won the game, creating an intricate mosaic of secrets and betrayals that lead to her murder.

But R’hllor did not admit defeat so soon, so easily, no. So he raised her from the dead to use her again and again.

“Keligon!” Dany shouted and Drogon stopped, wings batting in place, not moving further towards Westeros, not turning back either. 

She was no one’s pawn, she would never be one again, not for the Lord of Light, nor the Old Gods.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please tell me what you think of this chapter and my _conspiracy theory_**.  
> I feel like it's not far fetched at all. All the quotes are from the show, as are all the scenes. The only thing I've added was the raven looking at Tyrion and Sansa standing by the parapet, for the Bran part of the theory.  
> And while Melisandre did not look towards them she was within eyesight of Dany of Jorah. (I spent way too much time watching those two scenes trying to figure out locations.)
> 
>    
> Anticipating your questions: No, we won't get to see Jorah next chapter, but he will be mentioned in ~~probably~~ every single chapter. Sowwy!  
> We will most likely get to see Daario, tho. (I know, I know, but I need him for... reasons)


	8. Chapter 8

 

Dany felt trapped, torn and so alone, but mostly impotent. What could she do against the Old Gods or R’hllor? How could she take her revenge without playing into one God’s wishes or the other’s? If she spared the wrongdoers she would anger the Lord of Light and please the Old Gods, if she took her revenge she would also do the Lord of Light’s bidding. She wanted to scream and burn something while at the same time, wanted to just give up, take herself out of the game and leave the Gods to fight amongst themselves. 

Her eyes filled with tears. _I just want to go home._ She thought, her voice sounding small and broken inside her head. 

 _Home._ Red door and lemon-scented breeze blowing through the curtains; white crumpled sheets and blue eyes; strong arms that had held her so well and lips that had kissed her just the same; whispered words of love and moans of ecstasy, his heartbeat under her ear. _Home. Him._

She closed her eyes and tears rushed down her cheeks. If she tried hard enough she could almost feel him, and oh, what she wouldn’t give to have it be so. Dany’s arms wrapped around herself, letting go of her hold on Drogon’s spikes. In her mind, the arms were not her own, but Jorah’s. She had the power to make it so, all she had to do was slip from Drogon’s back and fall and fall, until she landed back into the other realm, back into his arms. 

 _“Do not hurry back.”_ She heard his deep voice inside her head. 

Dany sighed, then opened her eyes and gripped Drogon’s spikes. It was just a momentary weakness, nothing more. Daenerys Targaryen was a survivor, a fighter. She had faced worse odds and won, time and time again. She could do it again, all she needed was faith, faith in herself. 

“Jikagon arlī,” She said to her child and he obeyed, turning back towards Essos, towards Volantis. Daenerys had begun her journey as a pawn in her brother's child play only to emerge as a queen. This time she would be neither pawn nor queen, she would become a player. Or try to.

By the time she returned, night had fallen, the temple seemed deserted and Dany was happy for it. Alone in her bedchamber she considered all she wanted to do, all she could do. _I must give up the Seven Kingdoms._ She thought. _If I am to reclaim it, I can only do it with fire and blood. No Westerosi will follow me after what I’ve done to King’s Landing, and if I do, I would be playing along with the Lord of Light’s game. Westeros is a fool’s errand. I can not win against the all-seeing Raven King, and if by some miracle I do, the people of Westeros will never see me as anything more than a tyrant, no matter what I do. No matter what, I will always be the Mad Queen. They will never love me, just fear me, despise me, oppose me and plot against me at every turn. There will be no victory even with a crown upon my head. I shall never know peace in Westeros and my true people will pay the price by the thousands, Dothraki, Unsullied… the last of my children._ She shook her head. _No, I cannot do it, the price is too high and there is no reward._ Her decision made, she was surprised to find that it did not pain her as much as she had thought. Years and years of working towards one goal and she was willingly letting it slip out of her hands. _I have grown soft and weary of war. Or maybe… it is mercy._ She smirked, thinking of the other ways in which she would take her revenge. _But then again, maybe not._  

As her eyelids fell heavy, and her heart felt as if a weight had been lifted from it, she hoped that in the land of dreams she’d find herself in Jorah’s arms, and if that was too much to ask, she wished she’d dream or her dear Missandei.

Instead, she woke up screaming, the taste of her own blood in her mouth, her chest aching from the blade. She reached across the bed again, and yet again she found Jorah’s side empty. One day she would learn to stop looking for him there, and that day her heart would be emptier for it. 

 

In the morning, she did not leave her chamber, instead, she waited for the priestess to come find her. No red dress adorned Dany’s body today.

“Valyrian steel, as you have requested,” Kinvara said, presenting a pouch of the precious metal with a boastful smile on her face. 

Dany took the pouch and found it to be smaller than she had hoped for. It would not do for what she intended, but it was a good start. 

“Will you leave us for Meereen now?” 

“Yes,” Dany answered matter-of-factly.

“Wise decision, you will need the Second Sons when you take back the Seven Kingdoms.” Kinvara said, a small smile on her face, “I would like for one of my priestesses to join you, she will be of much help to you in the fight for your claim.”

“And what would that cost?”

Kinvara blinked, “Nothing. No cost.”

Dany huffed. “Not to me, to the Seven Kingdoms.” Her voice turned to steel. “How many nonbelievers should my child purify to feed your God’s lust for fire? How many singed bones must be piled before your feet as payment for a throne that is no longer?”

Kinvara twitched at the sound of that.

“I know the truth, Bran and the Old Gods, your Lord, they’ve all been playing a game with the Realm, like children playing with ants. But I am no ant, I’m a dragon, and dragons do not answer to men, nor Gods.”

A wicked smile spread slowly across Kinvara’s face, she chuckled and shook her head, “Daenerys, Daenerys, forever the self-important, petulant child.” Her face turned stone cold before she hissed, “What is a dragon to a God?” 

The priestess’ gaze froze something at the nape of Dany’s neck.  

Kinvara straightened, there was nothing pleasant on her face as she said, “You will do what is expected of you, you will reclaim your birthright and you will do it with fire and blood, for that is the Targaryen way!”

“I will not!” Dany bellowed, the screams that had traveled upwards from the streets of King’s Landing still haunted her.

“You will not?” Kinvara mocked. “What are you if not a queen, Daenerys? _Everything_ you have done has been for the throne. It has been your goal, your purpose. Do you think you could be a commoner again? After tasting queendom?” She huffed, “No, the commoner girl died years ago, on her wedding night.”

Dany’s lips shook with rage, her white-knuckled fists stood to her side but she wanted them across the damned witch’s face.

Kinvara looked at her, then at her fist, with a look of disgust on her face, she said, “What will you do then? Let your kingdom be ruled by your enemies?” She scoffed. Take your rage and make something of it, turn it towards the ones that plotted your demise, not the one that brought you back from the dead, child.”

“May you burn in the Seven Hells!” Daenerys said as she made for the door of her chamber, using the last of her self-control to keep herself from swinging the pouch of Valyrian steel towards Kinvara’s head.

“I rejoice in fire, and so do you! We are fire made flesh!” She heard the priestess call after her. “Look for me in the flames, Daenerys, you will need me!”

“I will not need you, you….” Dany’s mouth was filled with the foulest of words in both Dothraki and High Valyrian. She spilled them all under her breath as she ran down the stairs and out the temple doors. 

Her rage stayed with her on top of Drogon’s back. _One word._ That was all it took and she would have her revenge on Kinvara and the Lord of Light. One word and the Great Temple of Volantis would be no more. Just. One. Word. 

“Sōvegon naejot Meereen!”

 

As she flew above Valyria, her rage quenched and her thoughts wandered towards the old city, towards her ancestors that had heralded from somewhere between those ruins and traveled across the Narrow Sea to forge a new life for themselves in Westeros. If they hadn’t, the Targaryen line would have died then, hundreds of years ago. She thought that she would like to see it, to walk through the old ruins, to run her hands over the old, weathered stone. If it were not for the stone men, she might have taken Drogon down. 

A pang of guilt twisted in her stomach, remembering the greyscale on Jorah’s arm, then seeing the scars on his hand, once he had returned to her, on Dragonstone. She had taken his hands in hers then, as they said their goodbyes, to show him that he was not less because of the marks on him, that she was not bothered by them. How could she be? They were a sign of his devotion to her. The man had allowed himself to be flayed alive just to return to her service. Dany clenched her jaw and shook her head when the image of a boat being pushed out to sea played again in her mind. One man looked straight out towards the sea, while the other turned to glance at her one last time. She should have known then. She would’ve still had Viserion if she hadn’t been so blind, so stupid. But since the past is carved into the stone face of time, hindsight is nothing more than poison to the mind and soul.

 

When Meereeen, with its imposing pyramids, came into sight, her thoughts that still lingered on her plans for revenge quickly turned. She realized that even with all that had happened between the brick walls of the city below her, she had still missed it. It had been her home for a while.  

Instead of sweeping down upon Meereen, Dany decided to announce her presence by circling it a few times. When she finally landed on top of a ziggurat, she waited patiently on Drogon’s back for the greeting party.

Not much later, a line of Second Sons soldiers formed before her, their weapons drawn, their stance menacing. Drogon growled low and threatening and Dany petted his scales, reassuringly. She was in no danger, and neither was her child. One breath of fire from his mouth would be enough to turn the men to ashes, and two bats of wings later they would both be back in the air, safe and unharmed. The Second Sons did not move to attack, just held their line, staring her down. Dany recognized none of their faces, not until from behind the line, a dark-haired man made his way towards her. 

“You always did know how to make an entrance.” Daario Naharis said, with a self-assured smile on his face.

Dany smiled back, her heart warmed at the sight of him. The Second Sons commander ordered his men to lower their weapons, which they did. Daario looked just as she remembered, young, beautiful and full of himself. 

“What brings you back to our humble city?”

“If I were to choose a word to describe Meereen it would not be humble, my dear Daario.” She said and saw his smile widen.

“I am sure it pales in comparison to the beauty of Westeros.”

“I can assure you, it does not.” 

Daario chuckled. “I look forward to hearing of all the ways in which Westeros pales in comparison to Essos.” He said and stepped forward, extending a hand.

Drogon growled and snapped his jaw at the man. 

“It’s all right!” She assured her child in High Valyrian, then looked at Daario who had jumped back, closer to his men. “We will talk here.” She said as she dismounted but remained by Drogon’s side.

She had trusted Daario once, but then again she had trusted Jon and the wound in her chest still stung of his betrayal. Her trust had to be earned again and again, and even then, she was not sure if it would run as deep as trusting someone with her life.

“Leave us,” Daario ordered his men. As they took their leave, he added for Daenerys. “Drogon has grown so much, but you, you look the same, beautiful as always and surprisingly… alive.” 

Dany couldn’t keep a small smile from her lips. 

“I had just received word of your untimely death. I’m happy to see it isn’t so.”

“It was so. I was dead, but no longer.”

Daario’s eyebrows rose at the sound, questions dancing in his eyes. He chuckled and said. “I shouldn’t be surprised, truly. I saw you come out unburnt from a raging fire. Death favors you.”

“Death favors no one, but another God does—did.”

Daario looked at her as if he was trying to read her. “Why is it that you’re here?”

“I’m looking for revenge, and I require your help in procuring it.”

“And you want to talk of such things here, on top of a pyramid, while your dragon looks at me as if I were his next meal?”

“Last man I trusted put a blade through my heart.”

Daario narrowed his eyes on her. He thought for a moment, then nodded to himself and threw his arakh at her feet, his beloved dagger followed soon after. “You always could trust me, Daenerys.”

She eyed him. He had never failed her. Had never betrayed her, and not even Jorah could say that. But that had been when he had wanted something from her. She had nothing left to offer him, and she had also discarded him before leaving for Westeros, a prideful man does not forget such offenses. She looked at the steel by her feet, then up at Daario, she could see no deceit in his eyes, no trace of the fury of a scorned man. “If I were to die again, Drogon will know, and you will not be pleased with what he will do to you, or the city.” She threatened, sounding much surer than she was. 

“Never one for pleasantries.” Daario chuckled, “You will return to him, safe and sound, you have my word.”

Dany inhaled long and deep, then petted Drogon’s snout, “Be good, I shall return.” 

Her child purred.

 

As they walked together through the city streets, a few of Daario’s men trailing behind them, on the faces of the people of Meereen, of the former slaves, Daenerys saw what she had not seen on any Westerosi’s face. Love, admiration, respect. 

It wasn’t on every face, many had blank stares, while on others’ apprehension and fear could be seen. 

But the men and women who had once been slaves did look at her with love and admiration. Some even held out their hands for her to take and thanked her for their freedom.

“You’re still loved by many,” Daario assured her. 

The painful knot in her throat made her choke on her words as she thanked them back, truly grateful for their kind words. _I never should have left._   

“Who rules Meereen?” Dany asked as they made their way inside the Great Pyramid, her voice back to normal.

“I do.”

Dany frowned. That was not what she had instructed.

“And a few others,” Daario continued, “there’s a council of sorts. There are six of us, two former Masters, two former slaves and a man that speaks for the common folk.” He groaned and shook his head. “Mostly, I keep the former masters and slaves from killing each other. Ruling hasn’t been as enjoyable as I thought it would.”

“Ruling rarely is,” Dany admitted. “What of the Sons of Harpy?”

Daario groaned again. “They are an annoyance rather than an actual threat now.” 

“And how have you manage that?” Dany asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You do not wish to know.” 

Dany blinked. She did wish to know, but she could not judge, whatever the answer was, she had done worse. Daario remained silent and she did not press the matter further. She had no right, she had relinquished Meereen and Daario, just as she had relinquished her gentle heart as she burned down King’s Landing.  

“And here we are, just like old times,” Daario said as they entered their former council room. 

A thin smile spread across Dany’s face as her fingers traced the round table, the weak rays of sun shining through the large balcony doors drawing patterns on the wood. 

“But it’s just the two of us now.” Daario said as he took a seat at the table, “No lovely Missandei, no stone-faced Greyworm, no Ser grumpy-old-man, and no Ser Barristan either.” He chuckled lightly.

There was no trace of amusement on Dany’s face as she took a seat across the table from him. 

Daario made a show of clearing his throat, then said, “News of your death had reached us a day ago, they said you were slain by your lover.” He narrowed his eyes on her as he added, “Maybe you should have chosen a better one.” 

“I should have,” she answered honestly, and let his ego falsely assume that she had meant him. 

“And better council.” 

She nodded, “I should have done that also.” Inwardly, Dany smiled. _He still cares for me._  

Daario smirked, pleased by her answer, and Dany wondered if it had always been so easy to twist him around her fingers. 

“Tell me what became of our friends, of your dragons.”

She swallowed hard and pressed her eyes shut for a moment. “Viserion… I lost him to the Night King and Rhaelgal to scorpions. Ser Jorah died protecting me from wights and my dear Missandei was executed by Cercei. Greyworm… I do not know, I hope to find him with your help.”

Daario blinked at her, bewilderment radiating from him, “I’m sorry, the what king?” He frowned, “You are not making much sense, Daenerys. What scorpion could ever hurt a dragon, and what are wights?”

He was right of course, the people of Essos knew nothing of the great threat beyond the wall. The old tales had been long forgotten in this land, the Night King meant nothing to them and neither did wights. Dany took a breath before telling him everything, from the moment she came ashore on Dragonstone to waking up in Volantis.  

“Well, fuck!” Daario said getting up from the table and pacing the room. “I believe you, yet I can hardly believe it. Fuck!” He ran a hand through his dark tresses, his eyes darting as if he was still trying to comprehend all that he had heard. He looked at her, “You saved Westeros, and maybe even Essos… and they repaid you with death.” 

“Yes,” she admitted, “but I also brought death to many that did not deserve it.” 

“Fuck them! Do you think I care? They would’ve all been dead anyway!” Daario said with conviction. He took a deep breath then sat back in his chair. “Many men died during the… what do you call it, Long Night?” Dany nodded and Daario continued, “And many more as you took King’s Landing. Unless they arm and teach women and children how to fight, Westeros is ours for the taking.” He smiled, confident and pleased with himself, “I can put you back on your throne in a fortnight, my queen!”

Dany didn’t ask with what men he planned on taking Westeros for it did not matter. 

“I do not want the throne, what I want is revenge.”

The Second Son looked disappointed by her words and Dany wondered what he would have wanted, demanded in return. It would not have been to rule, she knew that much, but maybe he would’ve been happy as a consort or even as a mere lover. 

Daario let out a huff of breath, “Then, revenge is what you shall have. Where do we start?”

“Do you know of any Valyrian steel in Meereen, or any of the cities in the Bay of Dragons?”

“I may have seen a few smokey daggers, and jewelry around merchant's necks.” 

“Procure them for me, please, and find me a smith who can reshape them.” 

 

*

 

Dany sat by the fire, her chair close to the hearth, her body soaking in its heat, and wondered of the last time the fireplace in her old bedchamber had been lit. She thought it had to have been years and years. The weather did not ask for one now either, a down quilt or furs would have been enough for anyone to feel warm underneath them. Anyone but her. The chill that had settled in her bones when she had awakened on the stone slab refused to leave her. She wished she could step inside the fire and rest there, maybe she’d feel warm again, maybe the fire would keep away her nightmares too. 

The sound of the crackling fire and the heat that was slowly seeping into her had a hypnotizing effect, and her mind left to wonder. 

 

There were ghosts everywhere in Meereen, she had seen them in the halls of the Great Pyramid, in the council room, in the throne room. The ghost did not live there, she had carried them with her in her heart, and in these familiar surroundings, they had been brought back to life. 

Dany looked to her bed and saw Missandei braiding her hair with talented hands as they giggled and whispered together like careless girls. She had seen her in the throne room too, standing on the dais, just below the throne, her hands clasped together, her intelligent eyes taking notice of everything around. Her beautiful, smart Missandei that had suffered so much, that deserved so much. A fist clenched around Dany’s heart, and orange and fiery red danced in the tear that ran down her cheek.

And Jorah… oh, he was everywhere. She had seen him first in the halls, a flash of golden was all it took for her heart to skip, for her hand to reach for the support of brick walls. In the throne room, she had seen him again, standing tall to the right of a now-empty throne, hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to cut down any who would dare harm his queen. He had been in the council room too, sitting in his usual spot, giving her looks that pulled at her heartstring until she felt the organ being yanked out of her chest. 

Dany pressed her lips together and swallowed. She tried hard not to think of all the ways in which they had hurt each other between the walls of this city. Instead, her thoughts traveled further, to another realm, where there was nothing but love between them. How sweet the time behind the red door had been, how good his arms around her had felt, how she could still feel the ghost of those arms, those hands, of his many, many kisses. 

She could feel one now, a hand on top of hers, warm and familiar, and yet… 

She knew she’d be greeted with Daario’s eyes and not Jorah’s even before she cast them down. She looked at him, the orange light of the fireplace warmed his face, made his eyes sparkle with gold and played in his dark tresses, turning them goldish-red. He was so beautiful like this. He looked like a prince that girls would spend their nights tossing and turning in bed at the thought of.

Bent on one knee, Daario said, “I can make you forget.” His voice was softer than she had ever heard it and time seemed to have slowed down. The tips of his fingers drew unknown shapes as they meandered on the exposed skin of the back of her hand and her wrist.

“Whatever it is you’re thinking of.” He said, as his fingers threaded between hers, gently, slowly, intimately. “ _Whoever_ it is you’re thinking of.”

Dany smiled warmly and looked at their joined hands.

“I do not want to forget.” She said, as she slowly pulled her hand away from his. It’s late, we should retire for the night.”

Daario smiled. 

“Each to their own bedchambers.”

The smile faded from his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, still no Jorah, yet somehow, also plenty of Jorah.....  
> There is going to be a chapter from his POV at some point, if any of you stick around to read it :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I first wrote Grey Worm's lines with his characteristic *bad grammar/beginner level foreign language student* way of speaking, but after rewatching his parts in season 8 I realized that by the end his grammar and vocabulary were pretty flawless and all that remained was his strong accent.  
> I kept a little bit of the faulty grammar just to keep his distinctive voice but done away with most of it. Hope it still reads as him.  
>   
>   
> 

###    


Every night since her death, Daenerys dreamt of Jon’s dagger piercing her heart. Every night, without exception. It had been easier in the other realm, where Jorah kept watch over her, waking her before the dream and Jon did their worst. There, Jorah was always within reach; his arms, her blanket; his chest, her pillow; the sound of his heartbeat, her lullaby, all those parts of her lover helped chase the horrors away and gave her comfort. 

She had none of those things here.

 

“No!” Daenerys screamed, jumping awake, cold sweat running down her back, her hand reaching for Jorah again, but this time, she knew her fingertips would grab at nothing before touching the empty sheets. She fisted those fingers and slammed them into the mattress, cursing herself for her stupidity, for her weakness. 

She should know better, her bed had been empty since her resurrection, yet still,- she couldn’t stop herself from reaching towards a Jorah that was no longer. And how she wished that weren’t so, how she longed for her fingers to caress his back, for him to turn to her, sleep clinging to his lashes and wrap his arms around her, keep her warm and safe in his embrace as she dug her nose in the crook of his neck, inhaling him, the scent of him making her feel at home, chasing away her nightmares. 

_That scent_. 

Dany’s nostrils filled with it just at the memory. He smelled like crisp, winter air and green grass, like summer sun and Qarth spices, like Meereen perfumed oils. She knew it was all in her head, she knew it had always been just in her head, it did not matter.

_Will it be like this for ever?_ She thought.  _Will I always dream of the man who killed me? Reach for the man who died for me?_

Part of her almost wished she hadn’t had that time with Jorah in the afterlife. He had weakened her, she had grown too accustomed to him, too dependent on him.  _You were my strength in life, and my weakness in death._ But she remembered the love in his eyes and on the tip of his tongue, the way he always put her before anything else, the way he loved her, made love to her, and her heart both ached and swoon at the memory, while her belly fluttered with a thousand dragonflies. 

And just like the Maesters of the realm did for thousands of years, Dany wondered if it was better to have loved and lost, or not have known love at all? 

_No, I do not regret it,_ she decided,  _for love does not buy you like a blood mare, nor does it force itself between your legs, leaving you worse for wear. It does not reject you when you are at your lowest, your most vulnerable and it does not put a blade through your heart._   _No, love good and true protects you, lifts you up, gives all and asks for nothing._   _I do not regret it, for I have finally known love as it should be._ Dany closed her eyes and set her jaw _. However short…_   

She hoped Jorah had returned to Bear Island by now, hoped he’d find peace there. Maybe he’d find the family he had lost along the way, but part of her knew he would be alone there, for  _she_ was his home… and he was hers. 

Dany swallowed, she would think of it no longer, for nothing but sorrow laid there. She pulled the covers off and left her bed.  _No more thoughts of loss, no more fears of nightmares. I am a dragon, I will be a dragon!_

And so, she made her way to the hearth and the dying fire inside it and asked the flames, “Show me Grey Worm.” In it she saw what was left of her armada, sailing South-East in the Summer Sea. Standing at the bow of a ship, she saw him, looking out into the distance, his back straight, his hands clasped behind it, his face as stern as always. “I need you once more, my brave Unsullied.”

 

Outside her window, the crepuscular light of morning began chasing away the darkness and Dany dressed for the day and made for Daario’s bedchamber. She needed him. The voyage to Naath was long, and there was nothing but water for most of the way. She could not cross the sea on Drogon’s back, there would be no place for her to rest along the way.

“It’s barely the ass crack of dawn, Daenerys,” Daario complained in the doorway, rubbing at his eyes. “Whatever it is, it can wait…  unless you’ve changed your mind and want to join me in bed.” He added with a smile upon his face. 

Dany side-eyed him as she walked past his shirtless figure and into his bedchamber.

“I need to find Grey Worm, I need a ship, and as many Second Sons as we can spare without disrupting the peace in Meereen.” 

“Straight down to business, I see,” Daario sighed. “ _We_ can spare?” He questioned cocking an eyebrow, “It’s  _we_ now, is it? We’re a  _we_? Because we’re not a  _we_ in any other sense of the word.”

Dany narrowed her eyes on him and huffed under her breath. The Daario of today had forgotten the promises of last night. She shook her head in half amusement. She thought that Daario had grown out of his smallness, but she had been wrong, all it took was for her to deny him her bed and he had gone back on his word. 

For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why she had even dared to think otherwise. She knew better. Every man had required something in exchange for their love, their protection, support. Drogo had wanted a trophy, a beautiful Princess with the blood of old Valyria running through her veins. What better way for the powerful Khal Drogo to show his might than to own a wife with the same Valyrian blood as the one that had subjugated the Dothraki of long ago? And he wanted her to birth  _him_ a son, the stallion that would mount the world, and Drogo would give  _him_ , not her, the iron seat and the Seven Kingdoms. But their son had never drawn breath and Drogo was long gone, riding in the Night Lands with his ancestors, while  _she_ had become the stallion, the Khal of Khals, the one who had united the Dothraki under one Khalasar and rode to the ends of the earth with them, to Westeros. 

Daario had wanted her youth and beauty, her body and her bed, and all the bragging rights that being in the Dragon Queen’s favors offered him. She had let him in her bed, and in return she had been given the Second Sons. 

Jon had wanted dragonglass and help in the fight against the Night King, and in return he had… _What had he done for me_? Dany wondered.  _What had he given me?_   _Nothing_ , she decided.  _Nothing_. But he had taken plenty, and after she had given all she had, he had taken her life too.  

All the love she had received had been conditioned by men’s needs and wants. A trophy and a prophetic son, a warm bed and willing body, weapons and an army. 

_Almost all the love,_  she corrected herself. For there was another, one that had never asked for anything, that had never attached conditions to his affections. That had seen _her_ and the fire that burned inside her and had not confused it with the fire of a Dothraki prophecy, that had wanted her not because she was a dragon queen, nor because she had armies at her disposal. 

“I believe we should talk about your plans for the future. What will you do once you get your revenge?”

“I… ”Dany blinked, brought out of her reverie by Daario’s words “I do not know.” She said, straightening her back, “But I know I do not want to be anywhere I’m not wanted.” 

“You don’t want to be where you’re wanted either.”

“Enough, Daario!” Dany snapped, easily guessing the meaning behind his words. “I have been murdered, had a knife shoved in my heart by a man I used to love, and all you can think of is your own cock?”

Daario seemed unfazed by her outburst as he said, “Believe it or not, I am trying to help you.” 

Dany huffed and rolled her eyes.  _Help me?_  

“I admit it, yes, I want you back, Daenerys, but I also see the sadness in your eyes, and the way you get lost in a world of your own, and…” He moved a step closer to her, “I could make you forget, forget  _him_ —and don’t lie and say you’re thinking about the throne you’ve longed for and lost, because I offered it to you and you did not want it.” Daario’s eyes softened, “He killed you, Daenerys, and yet you still long for him?”

“It’s not—”

“No, don’t try to deny it! _You_ said you do not wish to forget, remember? And I’ve seen the—”

“It’s not him!” Dany burst out, fists clenched, nails digging into flesh, “It’s not Jon! I hate Jon! I hate, hate,  _hate_ him with every little piece of me. I spend no time thinking fondly of him, and if by some horrible occurrence I ever will, if my heart takes one damned beat for him, I’ll tear it out of my chest myself and feed it to the dogs, for I have no need for such a heart.”

“If it’s not Jon, then… ”

Dany’s lips shook with anger and she tasted bile in her mouth, the thought of longing for the man that killed her, the one that plagued her nightmares turned her stomach. The palms of her hands stung, her nails had dug deep as she tried to keep her queenly manner. She had failed, she knew it, but it did not matter, it was only Daario and she was a queen no longer. “You need not concern yourself with my private thoughts.” She offered as soon as she could keep her voice leveled. 

“Very well,” Daario sighed. A few moments later, he asked, “Do you want Meereen back?”

Dany swallowed. “Only if they want me back.”

“And will I yet again be thrown out like garbage once you have it back?”

Dany blinked, once, twice. _I may have judged him too harshly,_ she thought. Maybe it wasn’t her bed that he wanted the most, maybe it was reassurance that this time she would treat him better. Maybe, beneath the arrogance, and buried under all that cockiness, fear and insecurities dwelled.  

“No.” Dany said, her voice soft, her hands reaching for him. “And you were not cast aside the first time either, I left a city in your hands, I trusted you to rule it until they found their own way.” Dany’s fingers caressed his knuckles, gently. “If I had taken you with me, you might have been dead now.” 

“Can I trust you?” Daario asked, narrowing his eyes on her.

“Yes. I give you my word, I do not wish to usurp you, nor the rest of the council.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A seat at the table.” Dany realized as the words left her mouth. “I might die before I get my revenge, but if I live, I…  I want to build something, a legacy, here in Meereen. I don’t want my family’s words to be my legacy.” She added, the words flowing out of her mouth with veritas and ease.

“Will Meereen be enough for the Dragon Queen?”

Dany did not answer. She thought it would though, but then again… 

Daario shook his head and gave her a small smile. “Well, you always did like ships, let’s go find you one.”

Dany smiled back. “Before we go, there’s one more thing I need from you.”

“What?”

“A promise.”

 

*

 

Half a fortnight later, Dany’s feet touched the white sands of Naath and a dozen wonders danced in her eyes. Throughout the years, Missandei had spoken of her island enough for Dany to vividly picture it, she knew it would be beautiful, magical even, but words had failed to describe what her eyes saw. 

The island was bigger than she had thought it and even if it looked nothing like Qarth, it still reminded her of it. Of how paradise-like Qarth had seemed as its doors opened for her, Ser Jorah and her bloodriders. Sometimes, under the heat of the Red Waste, on the days the sun had done its worst, she wondered if she had not died on top of Drogo’s funeral pyre, if the trek through the desert was not her personal hell, or purgatory. How happy she had been to be let into Qarth, back into life. 

Naath felt like that, like warm, welcoming  _life_ after the endless, cold nothingness of the seas. It was green, untamed and wild. Beautiful, white sand beaches long as the eye could see gave way to verdant soil and palm trees taller than the pyramids of Meereen. Flowers, the size of a man’s fist and larger still, peeked through the grass in blues more beautiful than the seas from which they had disembarked; whiter than Northern snow; or redder than freshly spilled blood, and the air, warmed by a lingering sun, was fragrant with the scent of them all. In all her travels, Daenerys had not seen such beauty, for above it all, butterflies the colors of the rainbow danced their ancient dances on invisible currents of air. 

“It’s beautiful,” Daario said from her left. 

_That it is,_  Daenerys thought,  _almost as beautiful as my Missandei._  She wondered if the Naathi people would be as wild and as free as their island and if Missandei would have grown to be just the same if she had not been taken as a child. Sharp talons pierced her heart at the thought of all that her friend had lost; her home, her family, her life, all traded for so many years of misery. Dany clenched her jaw. She hoped that the scattered and scraped together moments of happiness Missandei had had since Astapor and until her dying day had been enough balm to soothe her many wounds.  

With Daario to her left and a handful of Second Sons trailing behind them, Dany’s feet took them inland down a beaten path, the same path that slavers might have used to steal Naathi children, to take them away from paradise and drag them to the hell of Slaver’s Bay. There were no people on the path, nor anywhere, the island seemed deserted.  _Had the slavers taken everyone that might fetch them a good price at the market and killed the rest?_ Gods, she hoped not. 

“Daenerys Jelmāzmo!” Dany heard her name called in a voice she would recognize out of thousands as she reached a small clearing in the overgrowth. A thin smile pulled at the corner of her lips.  _Torgo Nudho._

“I saw my queen dead between Drogon’s talons” Torgo continued in Valyrian, as he made his way out of his hiding and into the clearing. “How is it that you stand before me?”

“A God brought me back,” Dany said in the same language, taking a step towards him with each word, “my work here is not done. I need your help, the Unsullied’s help to finish it.” Her feet had reached his, and she took his hands in hers, he looked just as she remembered and at the same time, so different, as if his sharp edges had been blunted down, “Will you help me once more?” She asked in the common tongue.

For the first time, Dany saw Grey Worm’s lips quiver before he spoke, this time in the common tongue. “I thought you dead, Daenerys.”

“I was, and now I am not.” 

“I mourned you."

“I’m sorry,” Dany said as her thumbs caressed his hands, waiting for an answer.

Torgo shook his head, softly, “I am tired of war.”

“As am I…” she squeezed his hands gently, “just a few debts to be paid, then we can rest.”

Torgo swallowed, closing his eyes for a moment, when he opened them, the blunt weapon of a man she had found on this island was gone, replaced by the sharp one that had been by her side since Atapor, “Why you must bring  _him_ along?” He asked tilting his chin towards Daario.

“Oi!” She heard Daario complain from behind them, and Dany smiled.

 

The Naathi, with their dark skin and golden eyes, were beautiful inside and out. As soon as they realized that Dany and the Second Sons were not a threat, dozens and dozens had came out from their hiding places. The women with their flower-adorned hair and the men, tall and handsome had both offered them fresh water and food, as per their custom, while the children had danced around her, curious and unaccustomed to strangers that had not come to take them to a life of misery. Dany allowed herself to enjoy their company, the offer of their water and their fruits, even to join in the children’s dances, to immerse herself in the way of life of her dear friend. She wanted to ask if anyone remembered the girl that had been stolen long ago, if she had family left, but she did not, for she feared their answer. 

 

Dany sat on top of a woven mat, her legs crossed underneath her, as she watched Daario being chased around by laughing and screaming children.  From across the mat, sitting in the same fashion, Torgo grunted at the sight. “Daario Naharis has mind as child.”

“He can find joy and humor everywhere. Sometimes I envy that.” Dany said taking her eyes off Daario and looking at Torgo. “We must talk,” she added, the softness in her voice gone. She waited until she had Torgo’s full attention, then continued. “I’ve always given you a choice, all of you. I will never take the choice from you, you have it now, but I need to know, will you join me again?”

“Daenerys…. I… ”

“You are tired of war.”

“Yes.”

“And you want to protect the people of Naath.”

“Yes.”

“As you couldn’t— _we_ couldn’t protect Missandei.”

Torgo looked out at nothing for a moment, then said, “All my years, Daenerys, I had no fear. Then… one fear. Fear I never again see Missandei of Naath…” He swallowed and stayed silent for a long moment. His back hunched over, he said, “You left! Missandei fell off wall in pieces and you turned and left. You climbed Drogon and flew…. I—,” there were tears in his eyes now, and Dany did not think she had seen such a sight before, “You all left. You, spider, imp, all left. I stayed. Me and Unsullied stayed until everyone gone.” Tears were streaming down Torgo’s face as he continued,  “Westerosi could not have her body. Missandei would not rot in chains, Daenerys! I could not allow it!” He wiped at the tears with the back of his hand, though more came, as if all the tears that he had not cried in a lifetime had gathered behind his eyes. “Under Unsullied shields, I made towards Missandei. I looked into dead eyes and caressed beautiful cheek for last time... I took off chains and carried the pieces of her in my arms, and did not let go until Dragonstone.

I held her, Daenerys. I held my... my heart in my hands.” Torgo looked at his hands as he continued, “My hands were red, stained with Missandei’s blood. By the end they were stained with my blood too. With bare hands I dug grave in sandy earth until my fingers bled. Until our blood mixed together. I buried her.” He looked up at Daenerys, his lips shaking, “In strange land, I buried all I loved in world.  _All_! I have nothing, nothing before Missandei. Nothing after her. Nothing but fear...”

Dany’s lips quivered, her eyes red with all the tears shed while listening to Torgo, “You never told me. Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Torgo shook his head but did not answer. 

“I’m so sorry. I am so sorry. I never should have left Meereen, I never should have come to Westeros. All that I hold dear would've been alive now. All!” Dany said between sobs. 

“Why her, Daenerys? Why did the Gods not take me? Missandei should be the one here, with her people, not Grey Worm.”

“If only we could choose who lives and who dies, if only…”  Dany scooted herself next to him. She wiped her eyes before speaking softly, “Let me tell you a secret. Let me tell you what I believe.”

Torgo frowned and looked her in the eyes, “What secret?”

“You will see her again. Missandei is waiting for you, in the beyond.”

Torgo’s nostrils flared and his bottom lip shook, “Do not tell lies, Daenerys Stormborn. Do not be as cruel as masters!”

She grabbed his hand in hers, “I would never hurt you like this, nor would I use her memory, you know that, you  _must_ know it!” Dany said and Torgo nodded. “I was dead and there was nothing but darkness, and then there was a house from my childhood, a place I called home, the only place I truly felt at home…” She swallowed around the lump in her throat, “Ser Jorah was there, waiting for me, because… ” She choked on her words, “because I was his home, because I was what he wanted most in life and death. Because he loved me above all else, and… and…” Dany shook her head. She stopped herself from finishing, this was not about her and Jorah, it was about Torgo and Missandei. “I know she loved you as much as Ser Jorah loved me. Do you love her the same?”

“Yes.” He answered in an instant. 

“Then, I believe you will find each other again, for you are each other’s home…  Maybe she’s waiting in the afterlife, on a white sand beach, butterflies all around her, her hands clasped in front of her, her back straight, looking out at the sea… waiting.”  

Torgo’s lips shook again and more tears ran down his cheeks as he nodded. 

“I might not know for sure, but I believe it, I do.”

“I failed my queen.” Torgo said, wiping his eyes and straightening his back and Dany knew that he was done talking of Missandei, that he was done showing his weakness.“I should have killed the Westerosi, Jon Snow and imp too. I owe you two deaths, Daenerys. I give them to you.” 

“Thank you.” 

“But I can not leave Naathi without defense.”

“I know,” Dany said, then looked over at Daario who was splayed on his back, defeated, a pile of laughing children on top of him, “Darrio will have part of Meereen’s fleet patrol the seas around Naath, no child will be stolen by slavers again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know that falling from that heigh would do ... things to her body but I choose to ignore that because I refuse to defile Missandei any further. Gravity decided to take a break that day, that's my story, i'm sticking with it.
> 
> I know I said something else regarding this chapter, but I want to give some weight to Dany's and Grey Warm's talk and not have it get lost in the middle of the chapter. 
> 
> Expect another chapter soon and maybe a treat after that.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re still a fan of Jon Snow after 8x06... then, you will not care for this chapter. 
> 
> Does anyone remember chapter 4? :)

The Targaryen fleet’s sails had been painted black, as had those of the ship she had brought with her from Meereen. Like this, Daenerys’ small fleet would be a little more inconspicuous and she could have the element of surprise on her side. Though, with the Three Eyed Raven as king, the chances of that were less than she wanted them to be.  Still, Daenerys made sure they stayed close to Essos as they crossed the Narrow Sea. Up through the Stepstones they went, then further still towards Pentos, and up to Braavos, until they entered the Shivering Sea, then cruised past the icy, treacherous waters around Skagos and put their anchors down at Hardhome. 

 _How will I find Jon?_ She wondered as her feet touched Westeros once again. She did not stop to hold the earth between her fingers as she had done in Dragonstone. She had no warm feelings left for Westeros, nor any Westerosi. 

Inside an abandoned and run down wildling home, Daenerys, Daario, Grey Worm and a few other Unsullied and Second Sons were huddled together by the fire. The rest were either taking cover from the weather inside the other homes or keeping watch.

“I think my balls froze off,” Daario said, shivering, “yours too?” He asked Grey Worm, who only gave him a piercing look. “Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Daario added, sounding sincere. 

“Our blood, thin, accustomed to warm weather,” Grey Worm said, “yours even more,” he added tilting a chin towards Daario and his Second Sons, “you, not used to cold.”

“Pointing the obvious, as always,” Daario muttered under his foggy breath as he rubbed his hands together for warmth.

“Wildlings and Northern people have advantage. Even with furs and winter boots, we must find Jon Snow fast, then leave land of winter. Time, not in our favor here.”

“Yes, but _how_ do we find the bastard?”

“I’ll ride ahead, on Drogon’s back, search from above.” Dany said, “They might be northerners, but winter spares no one, they will light a fire, they have no reason not to, and I will find them, find _him._ Once I do, I’ll travel back and show you the way.”

 

On top of Drogon, Daenerys felt as cold as she had since she’d been brought back to life, no more, no less. Once again, she tried not to think of what that meant as her eyes scanned the Haunted Forest beneath her, looking for signs of life. 

She flew high enough in the winter sky so that she wouldn’t be easily spotted, yet low enough that once the fires were lit she could see smoke rising from below. There was none, not yet. The pale, winter sun still lingered, but she did not think it would be this easy anyway. 

Somewhere on the Narrow Sea she had asked the flames to show her her heart’s desire, and it had, she had seen Jon, on top of a horse, surrounded by wildlings, trekking through snow and ice, passing tree after three that looked just as frozen solid as the next. She had asked the same before she climbed on Drogon’s back and it had shown her the same frozen trees and the same snow and ice. There had been no landmarks in the flames, no oddly shaped, imposing rocks, no hills or mountains, no settlement, nothing. Finding him would be as easy as finding a particular flake in a show storm. 

 

Night had fallen on the third day of her search and Daenerys had been on top of Drogon’s back for hours and hours. With the sun gone, the temperature had dropped lower still and her hands felt like icicles clasped around ice shards, the spikes on her child’s back. He was cold too, she could feel it in the strange connection they shared. The longer they remained in this place the colder he got, like the fire inside him was turning to embers. He was a being of fire, he was not made for this season. “Let’s go back,” she said, petting his scales and Drogon turned. 

She was halfway back to where she assumed Daario and Greyworm would have set camp, thinking of ways in which she could warm her child, when smoke danced up into the moonlit sky. Instantly, she took Drogon lower. Between the trees she saw the red and orange flames of half a dozen fires. _They could be anyone_ , she thought, trying to stop her heart from pounding out of her chest, _it might not be him, it might be just—_ The howl of a direwolf filled her ears and Dany banked Drogon up and away. She had found him! Her heart raced in her throat and her hands shook around Drogon’s scaley reins. She had found her murderer. 

It would be so easy to end him. One word and everything below her would turn to ash, there would be no more Jon Snow, but there would also be no more wildlings and she did not wish to take innocent lives again. Dany’s lip curled upwards, _I can wait, Jon. I’ve waited this long I can wait a little longer_. She would not let impulse take over her. _When I take your life_ _I will look into your eyes, just as you looked into mine._  

 

By the next mid sun, with Drogon at her back, Daenerys awaited in a small clearing.

 _Thump! Thump! Thump!_ The sound bounced off frozen trees, almost echoing through the frigid forest as Unsullied spears slammed against their shields, herding Jon and the Wildlings like cattle out into the same clearing.  

 _Thump! Thump! Thump!_ Dany’s heart drummed from her chest up into her throat. _I am the blood of the dragon, and dragons fear no man, I am the blood of the dragon and dragons fear no man_ , she chanted inside her head, trying to muster up all her courage, trying not to think of Jon’s poisonous lips on hers; of the blade piercing her heart and life draining out of her. _I am the dragon, I am the dragon!_ She would not cower at the sight of her murderer, she would not allow herself to do so. 

Her queenly, impassive mask adorned her face even as her flesh quivered on her bones with fear and rage. She wanted to climb on top of Drogon and fly away to safety. She wanted to utter one single, simple word and have her child free her from the man she once loved, the one that had betrayed her in the most horrible of ways. She wanted to roll herself into a ball and disappear. 

Dany’s heart drummed in her ears as her eyes met Jon’s and her breath caught painfully in her throat. He was no longer a man, not to her. He was a monster, the kind of monster the little girl who couldn’t count to twenty hid under her blankets at the mere thought of, and she was no longer the dragon queen, but that clueless and scared little girl. _Do not cower before him_ , she urged herself, but the little girl had taken over and the poor thing was rolled into a ball, cowering in the dark recesses of her mind. _He killed us!_ _He killed us once, he can do it again,_ the girl said between sobs. 

 _No_ , Dany said to her younger, smaller self, _we are not alone, we are safe, we are surrounded by people that care for us, we are protected, we are safe_. 

The little girl looked up at her, questioning tears in her eyes, _We are?_  

 _Yes, yes we are_ , Dany said extending a hand toward the girl.

The girl looked at it, _Are you sure?_ She asked.

_Yes._

Tentatively she took Dany’s hand, lifting herself from the shadows and into the light. 

 _We are strong, stronger than we know, we can do this. Together._  

The girl looked up at Dany and nodded, then straightened her back, ready to face her fears. 

Dany blinked and her former self disappeared, but now, within her,  she had found the strength to face Jon, her murdered.

“Fall back!” Jon had screamed over the thumping, “Fall back!” he ordered the wildlings as Dany’s forces advanced. There had been no point in fighting, he and the wildling numbered merely a few dozens, with women and children amongst them, while the Unsullied were in the hundreds. Retreat was the only option. And then it wasn’t, for more Unsullied came out from under the cover of the forest on all sides, surrounding them. The thumping stopped, their spears were drawn now, pointed parallel to the ground, keeping Jon and the wildlings from getting too close to their shields, while at the same time, herding them into a tight circle. Everyone except Jon. They had parted their tight formation, allowing Jon to remain where he had stopped, frozen in his tracks, at the sight of Daenerys. 

His mouth half-open, his eyes wide and breath labored, Jon uttered, “Dae–Daenerys!” 

Dany set her jaw and narrowed her eyes on him. Now that fear was gone, rage was bubbling up inside her like milk over a fire.

“How?” Jon asked, shaking his head, his eyes still filled with dismay. 

Before she could answer, with the corner of her eye, Dany saw a flash of white leaping towards her, sharp teeth bared, ready to snap on her flesh. But before its teeth connected with her, Drogon’s wing slammed into the beast, tumbling it away in the snow. Ghost whimpered, then shook his head. The direwolf stood where he landed but bared his teeth again, the hackles on his back raised, his body ready to launch himself yet again. Drogon planted one winged arm into the snow, then the other. He roared low and threatening as his eyes locked on the direwolf. Ghost whimpered again and cowered to the ground. 

 _We are protected, we are safe_ , Dany thought, glad that her words had been proven true. 

She straightened her already straight back and keeping her eyes on Jon, she said, in a voice loud enough that every wildling could hear, “I have no quarrel with you. Leave now and none will hurt you, but if you stay and choose to fight for the man that slayed me, you will all share in his fate.” It was a lie, of course. The wildlings had no chance of winning this fight, and if they tried, the men _would_ share in Jon’s fate, but not the wilding women and children, they would be spared. But they need not know that. 

Dany took her eyes off Jon and settled them on the wildlings, awaiting their decision. She saw the redheaded wildling, Tormund, looking from her to Jon and back again.

“Go!” Jon said, pleaded, turning to his friend. 

“I can’t bloody leave you!” Tormund argued.

“Go! And take Ghost with you! Just go, please!” Jon begged.

The wildling did nothing for a moment, then cursed up a storm. He bowed his head and turned his back on Jon for the last time. The Unsullied opened their formation, releasing the wildlings.  In rows of two and three, they made their way out of the clearing. 

“Let’s go, boy,” Tormund said, wrapping his hands around Ghost’s neck, “let’s go!” The direwolf refused to budge.

“Go with him boy, you hear me, go with him!” Jon urged. Ghost whimpered once, twice, then listened to his master.

Daenerys swallowed and cast her eyes back to Jon. She said nothing while the wildlings left the clearing, she merely looked at the man she had once loved, seeing something that looked like sorrow in his watered eyes. She had no need nor want for it, and he had no right at sorrow.

As soon as the minor threat of the wildlings was gone, Daario and Grey Worm moved to stand on either side of her, protectively. 

“I am so sorry!” Jon said in a broken voice, tears dancing in his eyes.

“Don’t!” 

“I loved you, I still love you… ”

“Love?” Dany mocked, “Love? How can you say that to me? What do you know of the word?”

“I had no choice—”

“No choice?” Dany’s eyes were filled with tears now, they were not tears of love, nor sorrow, they were tears of anger. “You— ARGH!” She yelped, loud and broken, “I gave you and your fight _everything_. I lost everything because of you. My armies were decimated, the Unsullied, the Dothraki…  I lost Viserion, I lost Ser Jorah… and what have you given me in return? Nothing! You gave me nothing when I needed you the most, when I had lost and lost again, you kept me at bay…. Argh!” Dany screamed again, clenching her fists to her sides. How stupid she had been, how angry she was with him, with herself. 

“When did you give me love, Jon? When I begged you for it and you shunned me away? When did you love me? Was it when you shoved your knife in my heart as you kissed me?” 

A tear cut across Jon’s cheek as he said, “I’m so sorry, Dany, I’ve regretted it ever since…every day…  I… I love you. I need you to know that.”

“No! No, you do not love me!” She said, spitting the last two words at him as if bile, “You never had, you never will.” Dany let a bitter huff leave her lips, “Don’t you see, you do not kill those which you love. You keep them safe, you protect them at all cost. You give your life for them, you _do not_ kill them!” Dany stopped, then shook her head, she had no interest in convincing him of anything. “It doesn’t matter. I am not here for polemics, I am here for your life.” 

Another tear crossed Jon’s face but Dany did not care, she cared nothing for the man before her. Her love for him had died with her, it had spilled out of her heart and down the murderous blade to the floor of the throne room. And the hate for him had only grown and grown with each night, with each dream in which she felt his blade scrape against her bone and pierce her heart. 

“Daario, give me his sword,” Dany asked, her eyes still on Jon, “and your arak too.”

Daario moved to retrieve Jon’s sword. As he removed the sword and sheath from his belt, Daario looked Dany’s former lover up and down, seemingly unimpressed. Before he turned back to Daenerys, he backhanded Jon over the mouth, then spat at his feet. 

His usual, cheerful demeanor was back on his face as he handed Dany the sword. “Dark, long hair and beard… it seems you have a type.” He said as he took out his arak and offered it to her. 

Dany paid no mind to him, she just grabbed Longclaw by the scabbard with her left hand, and Daario’s arak with the other. She couldn’t help but notice that the sword weighed much less than the arak as she looked at the stone wolf pummel with its garnet eyes and its snarling teeth. It reminded her of the direwolf that had just attacked her.  She did not care for it, and wondered if she would have cared for the bear that had once adorned its end. With a swing of Daario’ blade, Dany sliced off the direwolf pummel off the end of the sword. It made no sound as it dipped into the white snow at her feet.  

Dany handed the arak back to its owner and removed Longclaw from its scabbard. She looked at the blade in her hand and found that she liked it better now that it was free of the Stark symbol. Such longing and pride she had heard in Jorah’s voice when he spoke of the sword, such shame to find himself unworthy of it. How she wished he was here beside her, how much she wanted to place the sword in his hands and tell him, “ _You are worthy of it, you have regained your honor and have paid for your trespassings tenfold. Take it, it is yours, it has always been yours.”_

Dany swallowed, Jorah was gone and she could never give him that. She focused her mind back on the feel of the sword in her hands. It fit much better in her hands than Jorah’s nameless, common sword. Still it was much too big for her, she could never use it, even if she had had the time in the afterlife to learn the ways of sword fighting. 

A small smile pulled at the edge of her lips as she ran a thumb over the cross guard and the hilt, the pale, winter sun catching in the shine of its black Valyrian steel, almost making it come to life. It was one of the last of its kind in existence, a metal more precious than gold, a metal she needed to forge into something different. But it had been Jorah’s, his hands had held the sword tightly as he fought his enemies, as he used it to keep himself alive and that pulled at the strings of her heart. But she could not let herself think in such ways. She had never seen Jorah hold the sword, and she did not need any physical reminder for him. He was with her always, locked in her mind and heart, kept safe and cared for. And she knew deep down that Jorah would want Longclaw to serve her, like _he_ had served her, to protect her, and by the damned Gods, how much she loved that about him.

She removed her eyes from the sword to look into Jon’s, the same water and sorrow still lingered there. He was begging her with his eyes, for what, she did not know, nor did she care to discover. 

She stepped closer to him, Daario and Grey Worm following suit, their attention on Jon, their hands clasped around their weapons. 

If she were to swing Longclaw, she would end the Targaryen line. She could bare no children, but he could father many. If she forgave him, the Targaryen line, _her_ bloodline, would live on. _Valar Morghulis_. A life for a life. Dany grabbed the hilt with both hands, holding on to it with a strong  grip.

 _Right foot. Hip swing. Strike_. She thought, remembering the one and only lesson Jorah had given her and Longclaw swung with all her might.

 A spray of Jon’s blood hit the bottom of her winter coat, followed by the sound of gargle. Another moment later,  Jon’s lifeless body lay in the show. His eyes were wide but unseeing as more blond left his open wound, seeping into the white snow, coloring it in shades of crimson. Dany watched the scene as if watching grass grow. She felt nothing.

“Step away.” She said as she moved back from him, her two protectors following in her steps.

When they were all at a safe distance, she uttered a single word. “Dracarys!” Flames shoot out of Drogon’s mouth and enveloped Jon’s body. 

When the fire died, Jon was nothing but ashes in the Northern wind. _You were never a dragon, you’ve always been just a wolf_. Now, finally, she found herself free of him. There would be no more resurrections for Jon Snow.

Perched on a tree branch at the end of the clearing, a raven with milked over eyes looked down at them. Drogon turned his head towards it and Dany followed her child’s gaze. She blinked, recognizing the Three Eyed Raven. Before she could think to say the word, Drogon cast his flames upon the bird, turning it, and the trees around it to ashes. 

She sheathed Longclaw, then offered it to Daario. “Put it with the rest of the Valyrian steel.” _Now, it should be enough_ , she thought. 

Before she made to climb on top of Drogon, she turned to Torgo and Daario, “Go to Dragonstone, I will meet you there.”

“Where will you go?” Daario asked, but Dany did not answer. 


End file.
